Beautiful in Her Armour
by mscrwth
Summary: Laura Roslin is not a happy camper, or, so this is earth, now what? Note the ratings change folks. It's just for chapter 4 and 15, the rest is safe. LAST PART NOW UP.
1. Chapter 1

Laura Roslin is not a happy camper.

The Promised Land sucks, it sucks bullets and she permits herself this small thing; to let her shock and disappointment bleed through as she utters the one word.

"Earth."

All around her, the faces of her companions reflect her sorrow and for a moment she allows herself to feel it, the enormity of it. That after all they've suffered. After all the loss and heartbreak, this is their reward; it is the cruelest of jokes, the bitterest of ironies. This wasteland is not what they'd set out to find when their worlds had been destroyed, not what they signed up for when they started their fateful journey across the heavens in search of the Promised Land.

She doesn't yet go beyond the plural, doesn't go from the communal to the personal. She knows that if she goes there, the weight of it will crush her, the weight of this, her failure.

Instead, she holds herself tightly as she stalks away from Bill and the rest of her companions, stalks towards the gunmetal grey shoreline, leaving them al behind rather than breaking down in front of them. Something bubbles inside of her, threatens to spill over, laughter or tears, she's not sure which.

Once she's a safe distance away, Laura stops for a moment, takes a deep breath, unclenches her rigid self control just a fraction. The air tastes like copper and ashes but underneath she can detect a different flavor, something rich and salty that reminds her of her youth and holidays by the sea on Caprica, and it is this she clings to as she continues her solitary march across the nuclear wasteland that is Earth.

When sorrow leaves and rage comes knocking, she welcomes it. She is angry, so angry; furious at the Gods. They used her as a plaything, gave her cancer and visions of redemption, fated her to die but plied her with the promise that her death would not be in vain, if only she would do their bidding.

They used her and abused her and she's borne it all, consoled by the knowledge that in the end it would all be worth it, that the loss of her own life would not be too steep a price to pay if it purchased her the survival of the human race, if it meant her people would be saved.

How noble, how arrogant and how ultimately futile.

When she hits the shoreline she turns left and just keeps walking. One glance behind her shows her companions are still rooted to the spot, Cylon and Human alike, all still staring ahead numbly, their hopes and dreams shattered. Bill looks to be coming out of it a little though, casting about him, probably looking for her, and Laura quickens her step, leaves the shoreline in order to lose herself amongst the ruins of this place.

As she walks, she curses the weakness in her limbs, the way her breath labors in her lungs, the tight, ever present band of pain across her chest, the queasy feeling in her stomach that never really goes away. The gods burdened her with cancer and made it seem like a gift, and then they played this stupid prank on her; her anger knows no bounds.

In the wake of her fury, thunder rumbles in the distance and lightning lights up the sky and when she feels the first fat spatters of rain on her face, she ducks into the nearest structure that seems halfway able to offer some shelter. Shivering, she wraps her arms around herself, ducks deeper into her jacket and surveys her surroundings.

The edifice she finds herself in looks to have been a temple of sorts, a holy place. There is the sketch of a nave, the vestiges of a raised dais, and the crumbling remains of a statue; a man, bearded and looking quite a bit like Gaius frakkin' Baltar during his trial, but with infinite love and compassion, rather than self-righteous arrogance, written on the stone visage. The statue is positioned to the back of the temple and every line in the architecture of this place leads towards it. In the heydays of this lost civilization, it would have been the centerpiece, the focus of worship.

And in that recognition, realization hits her hard. Before the destruction and devastation, before the end of all hope, the Thirteenth Tribe had worshipped a monotheist God, and Cylons had walked Earth's green pastures.

It brings her to her knees, this truth she's glimpsed before but has never fully acknowledged; it makes her close her eyes, forces the breath from her lungs, the strength from her limbs. She swallows convulsively, curses or prayers - or perhaps both - stuck in her throat; sucks in a huge breath and screams an inarticulate scream that rises to the rafters in a fury of grief, loud enough to shatter the heavens. She screams for her friends and family, all the people of the fleet, their Cylon allies even, earth and it's lost inhabitants. She screams and thinks that now that she's started, she might never stop, but in the end, when she feels her heart might just burst with the strain, her voice simply breaks, too frail after all, to articulate the full extent of her anguish.

In utter desolation, Laura takes a page from Bill's book, smashes her fist into the unforgiving stone beneath her, hard enough to break skin and shatter bone, stain the floor with her blood. All thought leaves her as agony crashes through her and in that moment of absolute clarity she sees, and in that seeing is broken and made anew.

Past the Opera House, past visions and prophecies and cancer and death, she sees, oh, how she sees now, and it is terrible, and it is beautiful.

When she finally opens her eyes, the grayness of the world has lifted, sunshine filters through the rafters, makes dust motes dance like fireflies around her. She lifts her face to the light, bathes in it like a ritual cleansing, until a small movement to her right catches her eye. There, in the shadows just beyond the light, she finds Billy and Elosha, her parents and her sisters, scores of Sixes and Eights, Emily and Adar and Maya; a host of known and unknown faces. This is not the small, intimate gathering that stood, waiting for her, on the other side of the river in her dream, these are the multitudes. Everyone she's lost, Human and Cylon both, before and during their long trek across the stars, all the names and numbers she's tattooed on her skin in invisible, indelible, ink.

Billy and Elosha, her parents and sisters move towards her and the multitudes follow. Laura kneels on the floor, human and frail, clutching her broken and bleeding hand to her heart, and stares and starts in wonder and awe as these specters of her past walk up to her and move through her like a benediction.

_Still don't know anything about women, except __that you make me proud_

_Told you the Ancients got a lot of things wrong_

_You did good, my sweet little girl_

They each leave her a piece of themselves, her many dead; some small measure of strength, a trace of hope, a hint of laughter, a flash of sunshine reflecting off of Lake Caprica, a glimpse of golden eyes alight with mischief, the taste of Virgon Brew on a hot summers evening, a touch like a blessing on fevered skin.

She feels them, oh, how she feels them, they thrum in her blood, sing in her veins, they are beautiful.

They find her like that, Bill, Lee and Kara, after a frantic search.

They've hunted through the ruins of this Gods forsaken place for hours; have existed in a carefully controlled state of utter panic ever since they first discovered Laura, the President, the Prophet, went missing. They each, in their own way, need her; for love, for guidance, for forgiveness, and all three know they will not rest until they recover her, might never leave here again if they don't.

They find her, kneeling on the cold, stone floor of what looks to have once been a temple; kneeling like a ritual sacrifice, clutching a bleeding hand to her chest, face turned up to the light. They approach her silently, aware that something powerful happened here, not sure if it is their place to disturb her. Bill kneels beside Laura, carefully, and breathes her name and she slowly turns towards him. They, all three, gasp in wonder at the sight. There is a calmness in her face that is miles removed from the serene mask she is wont to wear. So much so that they wonder how they could ever have mistaken the mask for the real thing. The lines of her face have softened, her green eyes are luminous, her ethereal smile radiates peace.

Lee and Kara kneel beside the Admiral and , all three simultaneously reach out to touch her, needing that human connection, feeling as if she might just float away from them any second now if they don't anchor her to them. As their hands touch her, Laura's beatific smile alights on each of them in turn, lingering on the Admiral the longest.

"Take me home," she says, her voice unimaginably soft, hoarse and broken, and as consciousness leaves her and she crumples to the floor, her fractured family is there to catch her.


	2. Chapter 2

She wakes up in Life Station, to the feel of Bill's hand in her own, the pungent smell of cigarettes and the irate voice of Jack Cottle.

"You wanted to go the his and hers route, I could have just given you a bandage and you two could have played doctor. I swear I don't know why I keep patching the both of you up!"

The good doctor sounds disgusted but the image he invokes actually brings a smile to Laura's face. Matching injuries instead of toothbrushes and towels, how very end of the worlds, how very them.

"Hmm," she answers him as she opens her eyes and immediately closes them again to ward off the glare from the overhead lights. "A curious sado-masochistic streak perhaps?" Her voice sounds rough, feels it.

"Laura," Bill's voice is laced with concern and his breath is hot on her cheek as he leans closer, she relishes the feeling for a moment before opening her eyes and smiling up at him.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself, how are you feeling?"

"I'm fine." And it's the truth, even though on closer inspection she finds her hand aches horribly and is in a cast and the cast itches; that, and her throat is sore, her mouth parched.

"You let me be the judge of that." Cottle cuts in. He takes her temperature, checks her pupils, fiddles with her IV. Throughout the examination, her eyes never leave Bill's blue gaze.

Finally, Cottle steps back into her line of sight. His scowl is impressive, but there's something behind it almost like laughter. "Do you have any idea how many bones there are in the human hand, young lady?"

Laura shrugs, takes a moment to sip at the water Bill's procured for her, then smiles up at her grumpy doctor. "Twenty seven."

"Frakking schoolteachers." He almost cracks a smile but then his scowl intensifies. "And do you have any idea how many of those you managed to injure with that little stunt you pulled, huh?" As she starts to answer his question, he stops her with a glare.

She tunes him out as he starts to speak of hairline fractures, green breaks, even tunes out Bill's concerned eyes. What happened down on earth is already becoming vague, but at the same time, the epiphany she had looms larger with every passing minute, it is the one thing that overrides all others, she knows it in her gut, knows it beyond the telling of it; this is not the last of their journey, this is not how it's all going to end.

_Cylons had walked where humanity had dreamt to go and Earth is a wasteland._

"… you messed yourself up for a good long while," Cottle's voice drones on, "especially seeing as how your whole system is already weakened, and now you'll have to nurse a broken hand while you recover your strength, good job."

It takes a moment for his words to sink in.

"Jack?" Her throat is still tender, her voice raw with hope. Bill's grip tightens around her good hand and when she looks up at him, she sees her own naked apprehension reflected back at her. "What are you saying?"

"Well, I wanted to make sure there were no adverse effects from your stay on the Baseship and your ill advised trip down to Earth, so I ran some tests while you were out …"

"Cut through it, Jack. It's either better or worse, which is it?"

"Neither, really, which frankly is strange enough in and of itself," Cottle says, and at her exasperated look hastens to elaborate. "You should be doing worse with the break in treatment, but it seems that between the Diloxin and the Chamalla and the Cylon DNA still in your system, we've managed to slow things down."

"How?" Laura remembers the gifts her dead gave her, the feeling of strength and life and love, thrumming through her veins.

"I don't know yet, but I'm going to find out. This is good news, Laura. It means we have more time to beat this thing, it means that for now, you have a break." He stubs out his cigarette in the nearest kidney dish, pats her on the knee. "I suggest you get some rest, fatten up, build up a bit of resistance, while I delve into your results further and try to determine a course of action."

"So I'm still dying," she says, somehow needing to say it aloud, "only slower?" Beside her, Bill sucks in a breath. She doesn't dare look at him, knows precisely the look on his face, knows she can't bear to see it there.

"If you want to look at it like that, then yes. But I'm going to figure this out, find out how to beat the cancer into submission for good this time." Cottle looks at her beseechingly, asking her to believe him, believe in him.

"Thank you." Laura sits up, swings her legs over the side of the bed, slips her feet into her dusty boots. Bill is instantly by her side, kneeling to tie her shoelaces, and Laura gratefully rests her hand on his shoulder while she tries to find her equilibrium. Her head is spinning. She needs to speak to Bill, although she doesn't yet know what to tell him, what not to. She needs to talk to the quorum, deal with the press. She needs to figure out her next step.

Bill finishes tying her shoelaces and comes to stand beside her, and she nods at him, then turns to Cottle, bestows a smile upon her doctor and friend. Something in her expression must have him rattled because he slips a cigarette between his lips but forgets to light it.

"Now get out of my sickbay and remember, don't overdo it, young lady."

"You know me, Jack," she says, as she squeezes his arm.

Cottle scowls, finally remembers his cigarette. "Hence the advance scolding," he says as he lights up. He takes a deep drag, watches her intently through the smoke as he exhales. "Seriously, Laura. You need to eat a proper meal, relax, get some rest."

"I will. I promise," she says, "as much as I can."

"But they won't let you, they never do." He sounds disgusted, looks it.

"Thank you for taking such good care of me," she says. Her hand trails along his arm, her fingers entwine with his for a moment. It almost feels like a goodbye, one he doesn't acknowledge.

"You be back here in two days, young lady," he says instead. "I'll have the rest of your test results back by then and we'll figure out how to proceed from there."

She nods, not really listening, her mind already miles removed from sickbay. She's back on Earth, lost in vision, lost in need, kneeling in some holy place where Cylons sat and worshipped. She's still dying and Earth is a wasteland and news of what they found down below is going to break the fleet apart and it's all on her. All of her choices have led her here, have led them here, the last remnants of humanity. She vowed to lead them to the promised land and guided them to Hades instead but this is not all there is, their journey will not end here, in ignominious defeat, and she needs to find a way to convince their people of that.

As they walk out of sickbay together, Bill's hand low on her back, guiding her through the hatch, she hears Cottle start to berate one of his orderlies, notices how the sharp aroma of his cigarettes has permeated the entire area around sickbay, and just like that, suddenly, laughter bubbles up inside her, threatens to overflow. Normalcy in the face of all this madness, it's a comfort of sorts. She's still dying and Earth is a wasteland, but life still goes on too. There's still Bill and al that he means to her, all that they mean to each other, there's still family, there's still time, there's still hope, if they can but hold on together. When the laughter spills over, she follows it home.


	3. Chapter 3

Their trek towards their quarters is peppered with short encounters, crewmen and pilots and civilians alike, all clinging to them, trying to find out the truth of the rumors that had already started to circulate the fleet. _Is it true? Madam President, Admiral, tell me it isn't true, comfort me, lie to me, make it better. _By the time they reach their quarters her mood has sobered considerably. He still doesn't know what caused her giggle fit anyway, had just been content to bask in the glow of her laughter for a few brief moments. There hadn't been anything to smile about since they first set foot on Earth and any chance to see her smile again was one he was going to grasp with both hands.

They step through into their quarters and Bill closes and locks the hatch behind them. Laura starts for the phone, picks it up, asks to be put through to Colonial One. Bill looks on as she cradles the phone in the crook of her neck and massages her forehead with her left hand. The muted light glints off her cast, her shoulders look so tense. He wants for her to be able to just let go of all this, wants to let go himself. He wants to just be, with her. It would be the closest thing to heaven, even if he is an Atheist. But there's no one else, they have to see this through.

At least now they'll truly see it through together. Her declaration on the Baseship, the unspoken promises they made to each other, now bind them together in love as well as fealty. There are so many hurdles still standing in their way, not least of which is how to go about salvaging what they may from this fiasco. He knows she'll take the brunt of the blame, she's the Prophet after all, the one who made Earth real, who kept hope alive against impossible odds down on New Caprica. If now people will start saying that they were better off on New Caprica, that's only to be expected, hope fades fast in the face of an insurmountable reality, memory is short.

He starts towards her as she curses and, without speaking, carefully replaces the phone in its cradle. She leans her forehead against the bulkhead and by the shaking of her shoulders he knows she's just barely suppressing tears. He walks up to her and rests his hand on the small of her back, gently, so as not to startle her.

"What is it?" he asks in a whisper.

Laura turns around, a wry smile tugging at her mouth even while tears still threaten. "I don't know who to call. Tory…"

"I know." The revelation that Tory is a Cylon has hit her hard, maybe not as hard as Saul's revelation has hit him, but then, Saul is still right here beside them, steadfast as ever, where Tory has gone to be with her Cylon brethren, defected, in a sense, even though they are now all part of an uneasy alliance. Bill holds out his hand and when she takes it, he pulls her towards the couch, pushes her down into the soft leather. She leans back with a sigh, closes her eyes. The fingers of her left hand unconsciously start scratching under the edge of her cast. He sits down beside her, rests his own hand atop hers, stops her fidgeting.

"What did you want her for?" he asks, although her suspects he knows the answer already.

She doesn't disappoint. "To arrange a meeting with the Quorum, schedule a press conference."

"And tell them what?" He's genuinely curious and a little afraid. He knows she experienced something profound down on the surface and he's not sure he'll like what it is.

"Bill, I don't know what it all means, yet, but I saw something, realized something." She sits up straight, then gets up and paces the room.

"What?"

"Cylons, Bill," she says, as she comes to a stop before him. "Cylons lived on Earth. I don't know if they just lived amongst them or if they _were_ the Thirteenth Tribe, but they were down there, and now they aren't and Earth is a wasteland and I'm still here."

He grabs her hand at that, pulls her to him. Her faith is a wonder to him, except in this, this notion that she is to die before they reach their Nirvana will never be acceptable to him. He chokes out her name, chokes on it. "Laura…"

She looks down at him, caresses the side of his face. "Don't worry, Bill. I'm not going gently; I'm not bowing down to this." She swipes off her wig, sets it down beside her on the coffee table. He rests his hand on the delicate curve of her naked skull, afraid almost to disturb the sparse auburn strands growing back in. She turns her head, leans her cheek into the palm of his hand. "I'll fight it every inch of the way, to be with you for as long as I can, believe me."

"Good."

"But we're still faced with this reality, and we have to tell the fleet something, have to keep their hopes up, or we'll have riots on our hands, people will start giving into despair, it's inevitable. The dream of Earth is what sustained us, without it, we won't need the Cylons, we'll destroy ourselves."

"So we tell them what?"

"I don't know, but I will, there's something here, it just needs to come clear and I don't know how to go about that, yet." She smiles that singular smile of hers and he believes her, with every fiber of his being, he believes her, he believes in her.

"In the meantime, we'd better arrange for Raptors to scour the surface, see if the whole frakking planet is as blasted as the bit we landed on?"

He moves to the phone as she nods at his suggestion. "That's what we'll tell the people, for now. Maybe we'll even find something, but somehow I'm not holding my breath."

"Me neither," he admits.

"How much time will it buy us?"

"Not much. A few days at most." It's an optimistic guesstimate and he knows she knows it by the lift of her brow, the tilt of her head.

She doesn't call him on it. "It'll be enough. It'll have to be."

"I'll call Kara to arrange the scouting parties. She flew back up here with us," he elaborates when she raises a questioning eyebrow. "Lee came back up as well. You had us all pretty worried there for a second."

"Only a second?"

"Yeah, well. Then I remembered you're Laura Roslin, and an itty bitty broken hand isn't going to stop you." He purposely downplays the terror he'd felt upon finding her, his absolute panic all during the Raptor ride back up to Galactica. He's rewarded by another full toothed smile and lifts the receiver, waggles it at her. "Want me to ask Lee to arrange the quorum meeting, set up the press conference?"

"Yes, please." She leans back into the couch, puts her feet up, gently rests her cast on her thigh, closes her eyes.

He places the calls. Kara is less than enthused but in the face of the enormity of this failure, which, he realizes, she must count as much her own as he and Laura count it theirs, she's just happy to be doing something, anything. Lee recognizes that it is imperative they keep moving. It's a lesson he's never forgotten, he tells his father, he learned it from Laura, the day the worlds ended.

Lee tells him he'll arrange the Quorum meeting to take place on Galactica, two hours from now, the press conference in three. "We're going to need the both of you in the days ahead," his son tells him. "Take good care of her, Dad."

Bill ends the call. "Will do, son," he whispers, soft enough so that he himself is the only one who hears the aching sadness in his own voice. Laura is on the couch, sleeping, or so he thinks and hopes. Never one to do his bidding though, he feels her presence behind him a moment before her soft touch alights on his shoulder. Her hands slide down his arms, steal around his waist as he hangs up the phone. He looks down, captures her hands in his gently, one elegant and expressive as ever, the other swollen and in a cast, both strong enough to hold him up as he takes a shuddering breath, then turns in her arms.

"We have two hours to get ready," he says as he moves back, puts some distance between them.

"Good," she replies. "Time enough to unwind, maybe take a shower."

He walks to his drinks cabinet to pour himself a drink. "Go ahead," he tells her, "I can just wash up later."

"With you," she continues as if he hadn't even spoken.

He chokes and splutters. The alcohol burns as it goes up his nose and down the wrong windpipe and she's beside him in a few quick strides, thumping his back as she laughs uproariously.

"Really?" He asks her when he's gotten his breathing back under control.

"Yes."

"Now?"

"About time, don't you think?"

He steps up close to her, rests his hands on her waist. "Laura Roslin, have I ever told you how much I love you?"

Her cool hand comes to rest on his face and a sparkle of electricity sweeps through him at the light touch. "Thoroughly and many times," she says. "But I think I didn't always hear you, I didn't always listen, and for that, I apologize."

"Then again, there were plenty of times you told me and I refused to listen, so I think we're about even on that score." She hums the way she does, low in the back of her throat and at the sound, a surge of desire blasts through him like a star going nova.

"How about from now on, we say it often and promise to always listen?"

"It's a deal," he says, and more than any promise he's ever made in his life, this is one he intends to keep.


	4. Chapter 4

"A deal." She takes his face in her hands, looks into his eyes and the bright flame of her green gaze burns like the thrust on a Viper, annihilates him and resurrects him all at once. She presses her lips against his and he has only a moment to realize how soft they are, how she tastes like tea and honey and something indefinable that he thinks might be the vestiges of Chamalla, before her tongue caresses his lips, demanding entry. He willingly grants it and their tongues tangle together as he feels her hand slide up his back. Then her fingers are in his hair, massaging his scalp, his neck, while her tongue explores the cavern of his mouth and their teeth clash. His own hands run up her back, down her sides and come to rest on her hips, he sucks her tongue deeper into his mouth and she moans into the kiss. He releases her mouth, allowing them to catch their breath as he starts to kiss his way up the line of her cheekbone, down the outline of her jaw.

"Clothes. Off. Now." Laura pants.

"Yes, Sir. Okay, Sir. Anything you say, Sir," Bill says as he breaks away from her. His hands, already aching to touch her again, fumble with the laces on his shoes. At her soft expletive he glances up at her, catches the wince as she fights with her own shoelaces with only one functioning hand.

"Let me," he says. He kneels down before her and strips her of her shoes and socks, caresses her delicate ankles. He's so close to her he can feel the heat coming off of her, smell her arousal. Slowly he slides up her body, trailing his hand up her calves, her thighs, pressing his hardening erection against her as he goes. The friction on his cock is exquisite and it's been so long since he did this, so long since he first dreamt of doing this with her, that he knows he'll not be able to hold out nearly as long as he'd like. By the stuttering of her breath he knows she is right there with him. The material of her slacks rides up as his hands slide ever higher, the fabric soft, but not as soft as he imagines she will be and he aches to feel her naked skin against his. Up his hands rise, up those long legs until they find and undo the clasp of her pants, tug down the zipper. The material slides down her legs, pools at her feet and she kicks the garment away as he claims her mouth again.

In a frenzy of lust, he walks her three steps back until her back is braced against the bulkhead and cups her heat through the thin material of her panties. Her moan shivers through him as his hand slides under the waistband, probes her slit and then his questing fingers dip into her wetness, first one, then two, three. He curls them against her slick walls, exploring her depths, searching for that elusive spot. He knows he's found it when she gasps into his mouth and her hips jerk and her heat pulses around his fingers. It won't take much to take her over the edge, he's halfway there already himself, just from touching her like this, and all he wants is to see her come undone, but her hands on his shoulders stay him.

"Wait," she says and all he can do is obey her.

She looks up at him and licks her lips. She is so beautiful, more beautiful than ever with her face flushed, her mouth swollen with kisses. Desire burns through him as she starts to slowly divest him of his clothes. The rough scratch of her cast against his skin is a counterpoint to the softness of her lips as she trails kisses along every inch of skin she exposes. He feels a bit self conscious. He's such an old war horse compared to her. Scarred and dented where she, in his late night fantasies at least, consists of ample curves, soft skin, and delicate dimples. He looks on as, seemingly of their own accord, his hands start unbuttoning her blouse and as the material falls away from her body, he sucks in his breath. Reality is both more and less than his fantasies. Her body, after all, is a war torn country twice over. When his knuckles brush over the swell of her breasts, her skin is as soft as he'd imagined it, but ample curves have given way to too sharp angles. The way her shoulder blades, her collarbones, her ribs are so clearly defined underneath her pale skin almost physically hurts him. Yet, she is so very beautiful to him. The sparkle in her eyes, the grace of her movements, the strength in her voice, the way her faith, her commitment, lights her from within; these are the things that drew him to her. They are never more present than they are right now, when she stands before him, unabashedly, all but naked, the cage of her body almost too frail to contain the spirit within.

He guides her to the rack on unsteady feet and eases her down, peeling off her blouse as he goes, reaching behind her and undoing the clasp of her bra with one deft movement. Like riding a bike or flying a Viper, that's one move you never unlearn, he thinks, then all thoughts flee as she looks up at him and slowly lies down, taking him with her.

"So beautiful, Laura. You are so very beautiful." He yanks down his boxers, steps out of them, as he lies down beside her, his rock hard cock brushes her thigh and he shivers with want.

She smiles, flushes. He runs his hands over her legs, up her stomach, and cups her breasts, leans in and kisses fist one pink nipple, then the other. She shudders as he moves to her neck, feels for her pulse point with the tip of his tongue, and suckles her there. All the while, he gently massages her breasts; he imagines he can feel the lump, feel the invader that is trying to take her away from him.

"Does it hurt?" he asks as he slowly begins to kiss his way down the column of her throat.

"It will hurt more if you stop," she says as she arches into his touch.

He takes her nipple into his mouth, begins to suckle her, gently, conscious of the fact that she's all but admitted, in her own, roundabout way, that she's in some pain at least. He switches to her other breast, kneads it more roughly than he's done her left one, suckles and nips and laves it and loves the feeling of her areola puckering in his mouth. He lets go with an audible pop and then pinches the hard little nub lightly, rolls it between thumb and forefinger. She moans low in her throat.

He reaches down to divest her of her panties, the last barrier between them. He slides them slowly off her long legs, drops kisses down one leg in their wake, nips and licks and bites his way up the other. At the juncture of her thighs he stops. She is so wet, so wet for him, the thought makes his cock throb. As he drags his tongue up her slit, dips into her heat, sucks and worries at her clit with his lips, his teeth, the tip of his tongue, she gasps and scoots away from his touch, pulls him urgently up her body.

"So close," she murmurs as she slings one leg over his hips, rolls them over, "I want you inside when I come."

And just like that he's on his back and then it's her, making her way down his body. He kisses the top of his scar, flicks his nipples with her tongue, strokes his sides, his hipbones, kisses the inside of his thighs. His hips buck when she gently touches her tongue to the underside of his cock, licks the prominent vein there, swirls her tongue in his pre-cum. He's about ready to burst even from the light contact, when she lets up, scoots up his body again to share his own taste with him.

"Laura," he warns her and she chuckles and kisses his jaw.

"I know, me too," she says as she wraps her fingers around him, lines up his shaft with her entrance and starts to sink down on him. He grabs her hips to steady her as she moves down his length. Her slick walls grip him tightly and the feeling is exquisite. She leans down, balances her hands on his shoulders, her cast digs into his collarbone painfully but all sensation is drowned in the feeling of absolute bliss as she pushes down slowly and steadily until he's buried in her up to the hilt. She's hot and wet and so incredibly snug around him and he remains perfectly still as they both adjusts to this, the feeling of him inside her, the feeling of her around him.

"Okay?" he asks after a long moment, and she surprises him with a giggle and a snort.

"More than okay. This feels so good, better than I dreamed even."

"You dreamed about this?" he asks, surprised.

She grinned. "Many, many times, in a variety of ways. You?"

"I don't know, I forget," he lies and knows she doesn't believe him by the curl of her lips, the twinkle in her eyes.

"One of these days you're going to have to tell me all about what it is you forget." She grins and begins to raise herself, then sink back down. She goes slowly at first but as she adjusts to the feel of him, she relaxes and starts to pick up the pace. His hands caress her thighs, her hips, her breasts, everywhere he can reach as he tries to keep a tight rein on his own urge to move. She is so delicate, recovering from the cancer and the Diloxin and the shock of Earth, even if she won't admit to it and he won't risk hurting her. It's an exquisite form of agony as he lies there, trying to keep still, and watches her bounce above him, her skin flushed and covered in a sheen of sweat. She glimmers and undulates on top of him and he has to squeeze his eyes shut against the beauty of her.

Knowing him better than perhaps he knows himself, she saves him from further torture when she bends down, whispers in his ear, "You can move Bill, I won't break. Gods, you feel so good."

It's all he needs, this benediction and he grips her hips, helps her up his length, slams her down as he thrusts his own hips upwards. A small, surprised grunt escapes her and he looks at her in concern but her eyes are closed, her head thrown back. As he watches her, her good hand comes up and starts to run up and down the length of her body, she caresses her nipples, runs her fingers down her sides, leaving a trial of goose bumps in their wake. It's the most erotic sight he's ever seen, he thinks as he increases his pace, thrusts up into her delicious heat. He is so close he can feel his orgasm coil in his balls.

"Not going last much longer now," he tells her.

She hums that hum of hers, and he knows that every time he hears it now, he will think of this exact moment. "Almost there," she pants

Her hand reaches down to press on her clit and her nails scrape lightly along his length as he moves out of her and he thinks, no, this, this is the most erotic thing ever. He tilts his hips a fraction, changes the angle so that her sensitive bundle of nerves scrapes across his length even as his cock hits the spot deeps inside her his earlier reconnaissance uncovered, and two or three strokes like this is all it takes. She throws her head back and keens an inarticulate sound of pleasure as tremors shake her body. Her chest flushes a deep dark red and her nipples pucker hard and her walls swell and flex around him.

He grunts her name as his cock hardens painfully for an interminable second and then his balls coil and heave and his hips start jerking erratically and he grinds into her and comes deep inside her, emptying himself in her still pulsating heat.

Laura collapses on top of him and her slight weight as she sprawls languidly across him almost makes him feel guilty for overexerting her. He thinks better of that thought, when she squeezes her internal muscles around his now deflated cock, still buried inside of her, and wriggles on top of him.

"Oh Gods," she says, "that was so good. Remind me again why we held off doing that for so long?"

He trials his fingers down her spine. "Can't remember," he replies, "stupid though." His heart crimps in his chest when he thinks of all the time they've wasted. The attraction, at least on his side, has been there almost from the start, he thinks it's the same for her. Why did they not listen to the dictates of their own hearts before this, there have been so many opportunities, and now, there's so little time left. Even with Cottle's news, he can't kid himself any longer, she's still dying, slower yes, but still, unless Cottle actually does come through, she's dying, he knows it from the precise tally of her ribs as he caressed them, the feel of her shoulder blades, almost poking through her skin.

"Yeah, stupid." She pushes herself up with her good hand braced against his chest, looks him in the eye. "But we're not going to waste another precious minute agonizing over the time lost, no could be and might haves. Okay?"

She knows him too well and he's so very glad of it. "Okay," he says as he rolls her over and captures her mouth in a searing kiss. He's still buried inside of her and feels his cock twitch as she responds to his kiss with equal fervor.

When they come up for air she giggles. "So, I'm thinking we have some catching up to do, flyboy."

"Flyboy?"

"Hmm, yes." She kisses his jaw. "The sight of you in that flight suit? Hoo boy."

He files that one away for future reference, caresses the shell of her ear, the curve of her skull, all but naked and so fragile, and kisses away a tear when she looks up at him with wonder.

"So, you were saying something about catching up?"

"Shower first?"

He slides out of her, disappointed but aware there's a Quorum meeting looming, a press conference. Best they get their Admiral and President facades up and ready. Slowly, he gets out of bed, holds out his hand and helps her to her feet.

"Don't look so disappointed, flyboy," she says. "You do know there's a difference between the verb, as in _to take a shower_." Laura uses her best schoolteacher voice, the one that drives him nuts. She smirks as she takes his flaccid cock in her hand, tugs him gently with her, while she continues to lecture him, "and then there's the noun, _shower_, as in a pace, a place to be doing things in? Things like catching up."

Bill grins as he follows her into the head, and together, they hold the world at bay for another few precious moments.


	5. Chapter 5

Surprisingly, the Quorum meeting goes much better than anticipated. Truth be told, she'd expected a vote of no confidence at the very least and there are actually a few members who briefly try to put the vote on the table but they're outnumbered and their motion is quickly shot down. When she tells the Quorum what they found on the surface, they are as shocked as anyone upon hearing their worst nightmare confirmed, but apparently they've decided that another change of leadership at this juncture would not be in anyone's best interest.

During the discussion, Laura briefly glances at Lee, sends him a look of gratitude. She's very aware of the fact that were it not for him graciously ceding the Presidency back to her upon her return from the Base ship, his subsequent public display of support, things might have gone very differently. Zarek too, makes it clear he'll back her, and though she doesn't quite trust him, even after all this time, his endorsement along with Lee's approval have done her standing with the Quorum a world of good.

The fact that the Admiral stands squarely behind her, figuratively as well as literally, his position at her back a reminder of where his loyalties lie, doesn't hurt either.

When she outlines the plans for a planet wide survey and her intent to hold a subsequent debate regarding the question of settlement, the Quorum agrees with her. They also jointly decide on a no flight measure that bars anyone from flying down to Earth, unless expressly authorized by either the Admiral, or the President. Then talk turns to fleet security, increased watchfulness, additional safety protocols, and though they are serious matters, a tiny part of her brain keeps going back to the time she shared with Bill in their quarters.

So long in coming, it had been everything she'd hoped for, everything she'd dreamed. The sex had been good, but more than that, their joining had been an affirmation of love, of life in the face of death, of trust and support, freely given; a small private heaven, a time-out amidst the pain and disappointment of Earth, a refuge from the knowledge that soon it would all be on their heads once again.

"Madam President, you will keep up appraised of any new developments?" The Sagittaron representative, Jacob Cantrell asks, rousing her from her thoughts.

"Naturally, Jacob," she replies. "In fact, I intend to hold bi-daily briefings. Mr. Adama here will be my spokesperson; he'll fill you in on any new developments." Even though she's just thought of it, Lee nods as if they'd long since agreed upon holding these briefings, and she feels another surge of gratitude.

Finally, the meeting ends and as the Quorum files out, Bill and Lee stay behind while she gathers her notes. She turns around and finds both men standing at attention, it looks incongruous on Lee with his sharp suit and tie and his unmilitary haircut. For a long moment they all stand and stare at each other, then Laura walks towards Bill, slips her hand in his and turns to Lee. She doesn't quite know what to say, their truce is still so new, it's awkward.

At last it's Lee who breaks the silence. "That went well."

"Surprisingly," she says.

"Yeah." He nods and fiddles with his tie, runs his hand through his hair. "Do you believe we'll find something down there?"

"Truthfully? No," she says. A quick look in his direction tells her Bill feels the same, though despite his misgivings the light in his eyes still shines brightly. The knowledge that it is the news of her reprieve that put that shine there only makes it more poignant. It's an empty promise, she feels it in her bones, this hope that Cottle gave them, but she's determined to do everything within her power to keep the light burning within him for as long as possible.

"Then why the scouting mission?"

"Because I've been known to be wrong, upon occasion."

Lee laughs and it transforms his face, erases the worried frown that has been etched across his brow since Baltar's trial, and for a moment she thinks she sees a glimpse of her Captain Apollo. She threads her arm through his, rests her casted hand in the crook of his elbow. Bill's hand settles in its customary place on the small of her back and together they step out into the corridor. It's bustling with activity, military personnel, government officials and their entourage of aides and advisors, concerned citizens, all clogging the halls, trying to accost them, trying to learn what is going on. Her security detail pushes through the crowd, clears a path and Laura is grateful for their steadfast presence by her side, their unwavering devotion. Unlike nearly everyone else they've encountered this day, they don't ask questions, don't judge, they just quietly and efficiently go about the business of protecting her.

As her small retinue nears the Pilot Ready Room, which has been set up as a makeshift press room, the crowds gradually thin out and they find Kara, pacing the hallway just outside the hatch.

"Sir," she salutes them.

Bill returns the salute, his features tightening at her obvious distress. "What's the sitrep?" he asks.

The young woman looks frazzled. Laura feels a knot form at the pit of her stomach. "We've laid down a planet wide grid," Kara tells them. "We have a full contingent of Raptors in the air and they're combing it. So far, bingo luck. No signs of life, radio activity's off the charts mostly, much worse than where we set down even. We haven't found anything that remotely looks like a viable place to maybe set down."

Laura hangs her head in defeat for a moment, however much she'd figured they would not find anything down there, to have it confirmed is still a blow. _Hope springs eternal and dies last_, she thinks as the knot inside her tightens.

"There's nothing?" she breathes, as much to herself as to her companions.

Bill increases the pressure of his touch, rubs comfort into her skin of her back even through the material of her jacket and blouse, Lee squeezes her arm, steps closer. Kara looks at them both, father and son, her expression softening, before her gaze returns to Laura. "Nothing to get your hopes up about yet," she says, "but we _have_ found _something_. The original landing party is still down on the surface, exploring the area, trying to find clues as to what happened. They've found the ruins of what appear to have been government buildings, a commercial district, a cultural temple of some sort and a relatively intact looking underground shelter."

At that, hope rekindles. "And have you found anything of use in there?"

Kara offers a tiny smile. "Yeah, mostly it's stocked with rations gone bad, but there are books too and data discs and even a few computers which we're hoping might still work."

"Good," Bill says. "Have them continue to search, but I want some of our people back up here. Gaeta, to sift through the data on the computers and disks, Helo, Dualla, Saul." He nearly chokes on the last name but visibly shrugs it off and continues. "We're too vulnerable with half the senior staff down there."

"What about the Cylons?" Laura asks. The mention of Saul triggering another concern. She's glad Bill seems to have come to a measure of acceptance regarding his best friend's earlier revelations. She herself is still struggling with the fact that Tory turned out to be a Cylon, even more so with the fact that she so readily turned her back on the fleet and sided with the Cylon rebels. She knows her own recent treatment of the young woman didn't help in that regard and hopes that she'll find the time to mend fences with her former aide. More importantly, she realizes, deep down inside where dreams and intuition turn to knowledge, that they need to keep their fragile alliance with the Rebel Cylons alive.

"What do you mean?" Bill raises a questioning eyebrow and she turns towards him.

"We should coordinate our efforts; show them we mean to work together."

"Make this truce stick." Lee nods his head vigorously.

Laura glances at Kara. "Are they helping or hindering?"

"Helping, for the most part," Kara says with an uneasy flicker in her eye. "Except D'Anna, she's off by herself down by the waterline, a squad of Cylons guarding her back."

"We need to talk to them," she tells Kara. She's still not a hundred percent sure the young woman is who she says she is, but after the revelation of the identities of four of the five final Cylons, she's also not sure she cares one way or the other, she's just glad to have her family back. "Will you arrange it?" she asks and Starbuck nods her acceptance.

As she turns and Lee lets go of her arm to spin open the hatch leading to the Ready Room, Laura feels Kara's hand on her arm and glances back at the young woman. Kara looks unsure of herself, opens her mouth to say something and then closes it again, she looks uncharacteristically hesitant, scared even.

"What?" Laura prompts.

"Madam President, I …" Kara falters but then seems to find some unknown reserve of courage and rushes on, "I'm sorry, so sorry. Sorry I pointed a gun at you, doubted you. Sorry I led us here; if I hadn't come back, my Viper… we never would have…"

She looks desperate and lost and so very, very young. Laura wonders if she herself was ever that young.

Laura puts her hand on Kara's and squeezes it. "There's no need," she says. "You didn't know, none of us knew. I certainly didn't. But you know what?" She leans towards her, whispers in Kara's ear. "I have a feeling we're right where we're supposed to be."

Kara draws back in surprise, a look of wonder and rising excitement on her face. "How? Why?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I will be."

Kara looks at her for a long moment, her head cocked sideways, her hands on her hips, then, she grins and salutes her. "I don't doubt it," she says and Laura is pleased to see the edges of her grin are laced with some of that old Starbuck cockiness as she adds, "If anyone can bring in the cat on this one, it's you, the two of you." She includes Bill with a grin and a raised eyebrow and Bill nods solemnly.

"Boom, boom, boom," he says.

"Boom, boom, boom," Laura echoes, and squeezes Kara's hand once more before releasing her. She watches the young woman stalk down the corridor, shouldering through the crowd with renewed vigor.

"Thank you," Bill breathes behind her and she turns and threads her arm through his.

"Bring in the cat," she muses. "You're going to have to tell me the story behind that one sometime soon." She doesn't add the _before it's too late _but it's implied and she feels Bill's gaze on her but ignores it. Instead, she turns towards the hatch and nods at the marines standing guard on either side. Something's hovering at the edge of her consciousness, something important, but the more she tries to catch hold of it, the more elusive it becomes. She shoves it to the back of her mind, knowing it will come to her when it must, and takes a deep breath as she prepares to face the press.

As soon as they step through the hatch into the Ready Room, they are inundated with questions. Obviously the news of Earth has spread like wildfire. Laura holds up her hands to ward off their questions as she steps up to the podium, Bill and Lee stationing themselves on either side of her, standing back slightly, on full alert. The sight of her cast actually has the power to quiet the room full of reporters, even if only for a moment, but a moment is all she needs. She speaks into the microphone, addresses them all with all the surety her vision on Earth gave her, al the courage Bill's love, Lee's support, Kara's desperation, have given her.

"I'm sure by now you've all heard the rumors," she says. "Rumors of Earth, that what we found down there is nothing short of what we left behind when we fled the Colonies. If that's what you heard, I can only tell you that it's true." She raises her hands as chaos erupts and each and every one of the reporters gathered before her starts volleying questions at her. Again, the sight of her cast stills them for some reason. "But I want to stress that Earth is huge and we only saw a tiny portion of it. Now if you'll permit me, I will outline the measures we've set in place to face this situation head on. But before I do, I will promise you this." She pauses and clears her throat, let's her voice carry, clear and strong, all the way to the back of the room, even as she suddenly feels the stresses of the last few days, gather force around her. "I will promise you that this is not going to defeat us," she says, "We've faced death and the destruction of all hope before and prevailed and this will not be what breaks us. We will get through this, but we all must band together, we must have faith."

At that everyone sits down again and in the stunned silence, she details the scouting operation, the no flight measure and other new safety protocols the Quorum just approved. She doesn't tell them about what they already found, the shelter, the computers. _ And books_, she thinks, _books!_ Best to keep that information under wraps until they've had a crack at those computers, who knows what information they contain.

"Are you instituting martial law?" one of the reporters at the back of the room asks. She doesn't recognize him, but then, the room is crowded and it seems that every reporter in the fleet rushed over to get the scoop on Earth and there are quite a few unknown faces amongst them.

"Certainly not," she says.

"Then why such extreme measures?"

"Because we cannot have everyone going down there just like that, we need to keep the fleet together."

"And how far are we prepared to go in order to ensure that?" another reporter asks. This one she knows, Jim something or other from the Gazette.

"Well, Jim," she replies. "In this matter, the Admiral has full authority to prevent any unauthorized departures."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he's charged with keeping the fleet together, by whatever means necessary." The room erupts into chaos again at the import of her words and again she holds up her hands, silences them. "But I'm sure it won't come to that," she says, "and I'm counting on you, ladies and gentlemen of the press, to help us maintain order in these difficult times. Now if there are no further questions?"

"Just one, Madam President." Another unknown reporter, sitting in the back row, addresses her. A beard and glasses are al she can make out of his features.

"Yes, Mr..?"

"Antanov, Ma'am," he says as he stands. "My question is this. If we're at Earth, why are you still alive?"

_That _is_ the question_, Laura thinks as she instinctively reaches out and tugs at Bill's sleeve, keeping him back when he steps forward with a barely contained growl. She turns her attention back to Antanov and his colleagues, spreads her hands and shrugs once. Her gaze sweeps the room, includes them all before alighting on him. "As you can see, Mr. Antanov," she says, "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. However..."

It's as far as she gets. Suddenly all hell breaks loose. There's a commotion in the hallway. Shouts of _False Prophet_ and _Traitors_ and _Death to the Cylons_ can be heard. As one, her security detail moves towards the hatch to join their colleagues standing guard outside, intent on helping them keep any threats out. She glances at Bill as he starts towards the hatch himself and then someone gasps nearby. As she turns towards the sound, she spots Antanov; he's suddenly halfway down the tier of seats, pointing a gun at her head.

She hears someone scream _Gun!_ and the reporters scatter, duck for cover. Someone grabs at Antanov's gun hand, Karen Fallbrook, she notes, one of the more level headed reporters. Antanov shoves Karen aside, points his gun at Laura's face again and squeezes the trigger.

Laura hears Bill shout her name from across the room, the syllables stretched like taffy across the space between them.

Time slows down to a crawl. She can feel the blood rushing through her veins, the rush of oxygen moving in and out of her lungs, the itch on her scalp underneath the wig, just over the occipital bone, the precise density of the deck plating underneath her feet, can see the horror on Karen's face, the sweat on Antanov's brow.

She imagines she can actually see the bullet as it leaves the gun, cleaves a path through the air, directly towards her face.

She throws up her hands, sees Lee hurl himself at her in a flying tackle.

Then everything speeds up again as she's thrown back by the impact and pain pulses through her. The last thing she hears is Bill's voice, calling for her, before blackness descends and the world falls away.


	6. Chapter 6

She dreams of the Opera House again, chasing down the steps to get to Hera, Sharon rushing down the opposite stairwell. As always happens, Six scoops up the child and hands her to Baltar, but this time they wait for Laura and Sharon to catch up to them. Six holds out her hand, grabs Laura's fingers in a firm and gentle grip. Looking down, Laura notices she's still wearing the cast on her other hand, can even feel the throb and itch of the injuries underneath. Six tugs at her hand, leads her to the other end of the lobby to the double doors that slowly open before them. Bright, pure white light spills over them and Laura feels a kind of peace wash over her, the likes of which she's never felt before, the closest she's come is when she was down on Earth, surrounded by her loved ones, or more recently, after she'd come undone, safe in Bill's arms.

She gasps in wonder and Six smiles, whispers in her ear. "I think we need to go in together," she says but as they step through the door into the light beyond, the world comes rushing back.

Laura opens her eyes and finds herself lying on the floor, her cheek pressed to the deck plating. Her hand hurts, she can feel it, but it's distant, like a second cousin, twice removed. Somewhere, people are yelling, fighting, but it feels like it's all happening down the corridor, in some other room, not here. Her vision is streaked with reds and violets, the bright lights of the Opera house, the after effects of her dream or vision, are playing havoc with her senses.

She can feel someone hovering over her though, a hand stroking her back. Bill she knows and smiles with the knowledge, his touch is already so familiar, more so with the love they shared only hours before. She rolls over and the confusion of her senses resolves itself as she looks up into the concerned blue of his eyes, tries to lever herself up.

"Laura, don't." He gently pushes her back down again. "Stay there, Lee's already on the horn to get Cottle."

So Lee is okay, she sighs a little in relief. "There's no need, I'm alright," she says as she brushes his hand away, tries to right herself again. This time, he helps her, meanwhile throwing a command at Lee to belay his order for Cottle to come down here.

"You're sure?" His voice is constricted, his touch urgent with need. "You're not hurt?"

"I don't think so," she says, but quiets as he sucks in a breath. She follows his line of sight, notices the state of her cast.

"Oh." The cast is cracked, splintered, most of her injured hand is exposed, it's bruised and swollen looking and there's a new, bloody furrow down the back of it.

"I think it deflected the bullet, you were lucky."

"Ow," she moans as she cradles her hand against her stomach, suddenly feels the sting of the new injury as if it had been lying in wait for her to see and appreciate it. She gradually notices too, that her side aches with burgeoning bruises where Lee presumably slammed into her and knocked her down. "Lucky, huh?" she says with a wry smile. At least she can breathe easily enough so there's no lasting damage done there.

"In a manner of speaking." He looks her up and down one last time, grabs her elbows, "Can you stand?"

"Yeah," she says as she leans on him while he helps her to her feet. "Is everyone else alright?"

"Yes," he replies, "Well, except for Antanov, but he'll live, for now."

She follows his gaze to where her security guards have Antanov handcuffed and down on his knees. His face is puffy, his nose bloodied. The matching stains on the back of Bill's right hand and the cuff of his uniform tell her all she needs to know. She looks around her and notices that while she was out, the room has been cleared, Lee is talking to two of her guards, gestures at Antanov and they grab a hold of him, move him towards the hatch, on their way to the brig she imagines.

As Lee makes his way towards them, she takes a step forward, testing her sea legs. She sways a bit, and both father and son reach out to steady her. Her hand is throbbing, it's making her nauseous and she still feels the after effects of her dream, her vision. She's sure the answers are there, within her grasp, the truth of the Opera House, if she could only hold fast to see it.

"Madam President, are you alright?" Lee asks, concern evident in his voice.

"Yes, thanks to you," she replies as she conjures a smile for him. "Hell of a tackle." She's quite proud of how steady she sounds, underneath though, shock is starting to set in. Somebody shot at her, somebody actually had her in his sights and pulled the trigger, it's unfathomable.

"Sorry about the body slam," Lee says, looking down at his feet while his face reddens.

"Don't apologize, you saved my life, a few bruises are nothing in comparison," she says. "Now do we have any idea who he was? I hadn't seen him before."

"No idea whatsoever," he says as he runs his hand through his hair, "We should have screened more carefully. I didn't think…"

"It's okay," she tells him. "I didn't either." Sometimes, he's so much like his father, blaming himself for everything that goes wrong, even the things that are beyond his control.

"I want a full investigation," Bill interrupts. "And I'm going to have the halls cleared of any non essential personnel, civilians too. This can't happen again."

"People are scared, Bill, disappointed," she says as she touches his shoulder. It's rigid like granite underneath her touch."Something like this was bound to occur. Don't worry, we'll make sure it doesn't happen again, I'm alright, end of story." But she doesn't feel alright, an almost imperceptible tremble is starting to vibrate through her limbs, it feels like her head is stuffed with cotton and the world keeps slipping sideways.

"Not until we get you to Cottle, have that looked after," Bill say as he gestures to where her hand is still cradled against her stomach.

She nods and they make their way to Life Station, her remaining marines taking up position front and back. They're both grim faced, looking deadly serious and she has no doubt they're berating themselves for what happened. She shakes herself, reminds herself that this did not just happen to her, but to them as well, they must feel like they failed her and she makes a mental note to speak to them later, set their minds at ease.

The halls are already less crowded and they make good progress until halfway to Life Station the blare of claxons and the sound of Gaeta's voice stops them. Adrenaline blasts through her, chasing away the lingering wooziness.

"Action stations, actions stations, set condition one throughout the ship, this is not a drill, repeat, action stations, actions stations, set condition one throughout the ship, this is not a drill." Gaeta booms from the speakers. "Admiral Adama to CIC, I repeat, this is not a drill."

Bill has already instinctively turned, his body angling towards CIC. He looks at her, the anguish of indecision plain on his face, torn between duty and concern. She's already one step ahead of him, tugs at his arm for him to follow. He stands stock still, won't budge.

She glances back, frowning. "Let's go," she says, "They need us."

"No," he all but growls. He glances at Lee, who immediately steps up and takes her arm in his.

"You need to go to Life Station first," Lee tells her, looking down at her then looking away at her heated glare.

"It can wait. I need to…"

"You need to go see Cottle," Bill interrupts her. "I can't have you in my CIC, bleeding and in pain. I can't have you distracting me." He looks at her with those impossibly blue eyes. "Please."

It's the _please_ that undoes her. She bows her head in acceptance. "Go," she tells him. "What are you waiting for? I'll be there as soon as I can."

He takes her by surprise when he leans over and presses a quick kiss to the corner of her mouth. The hallway is all but deserted, her guards are facing away from them, she's sure nobody witnessed the too public display of affection between the Admiral of the Fleet and the President of the Colonies but flushes with misplaced guilt anyway. Bill manages to look both grim and pleased with himself at the same time as he speeds away, yelling at Lee over his shoulder to take care of her.

"I will, don't worry," Lee says. For a moment they stand there and watch the Admiral speed down the hallway. When he disappears around a corner they turn back in the direction of Life Station. Lee grins down at her as they start walking again "About time." It's all he says, all they have time for as they hurry on their way, worry dodging their footsteps.

At this point, any one of a hundred things could have caused CIC to call for condition one. With the news of Earth confirmed, it could be riots, ships trying to break away from the fleet, perhaps even an attempt to take over Galactica, suicide runs, anything. She's glad at least that it was Gaeta's voice that came over the speakers, it means that in all probability the rest of the senior staff that Bill had brought up from the surface are at their stations as well. The thought reassures her as she hastens down the hall, trying to match Lee's long strides as best she can.

She's all but gasping for air as they burst into Life Station and needs a moment to compose herself. Bent over, trying to catch her breath, Laura curses the cancer and the treatments and her weakened condition and life in general, just for good measure. Lee stands beside her while one of her guards stations himself outside the hatch and the other takes up position a discreet distance behind her. She hears Cottle approach, straightens as he starts to immediately chew her out.

"What the hell is going on," he all but spits at her, "I thought I told you to go get some rest, not go gallivanting about the ship!"

Lee starts to protest but Laura shushes him with a hand on his arm. The other she holds out to Cottle and the sight of her ruined cast, the bleeding hand underneath shuts him up for once, it's a rare occurrence. He gently takes her forearm in his hand and guides her to an empty bed while yelling at one of his aides to get him the supplies he needs. Her guard moves with them, keeping his distance but not letting her out of his immediate sight and reach

As she sits down on the bed, Cottle looks at her, at Lee down at her hand, "What the frak happened?" he asks as he carefully starts peeling off the plaster. "You weren't content with the damage you'd already done yourself? Or were you missing my company?"

"Long story," she says. "No time."

"Just the bare bones then," he counters. His deft fingers have made short work of the remains of her cast. He grabs a bottle and some swabs and cleans the deep gash on the back of her hand. It stings and burns.

"Someone took a shot at me." She grits her teeth as he starts to manipulate her hand, her fingers, assessing both the new damage, and the state of the earlier injuries, and the dull throb and itch she's been ignoring all day roars to life.

"Wow, you got lucky then." He lights up a cigarette and gets up. "Good thing they didn't make matters worse, beyond that cut. I'll stitch it up and refit the cast. Lie back while I get my gear and I'll get someone to give you a shot of morpha for the pain."

"Chamalla," she says. "I need to stay awake and reasonably coherent, Morpha puts me to sleep."

"And Chamalla gets you high," he grouses, "some choice."

"I can handle it," she says. "And put a temporary splint on. No full cast. I need to get to CIC."

"Hell no! Are you out of your mind, that mess is not gonna heal properly with just a splint."

"If you haven't noticed, we're at condition one, in the middle of the biggest disaster yet. I'm kind of pressed for time."

He throws hp his hands in disgust. "Always the next crisis. Always in such a rush to make it all better for everyone but yourself. You wanna be in pain, fine, but don't say I didn't warn you."

"I'll come back later so you can fit a new cast."

"Damn woman, doesn't know what's good for her." Cottle grumbles as he stalks away, barking orders at his staff.

A nurse hands her some pills and a glass of water and she swallows them gratefully, empties the glass in a few big gulps. She suddenly notices she's not only thirsty but hungry too and tired, so very, very tired. It's already been such a long day and it doesn't look like it's going to end soon. She drifts off, startles awake when she hears Lee sigh. She looks for him and finds him pacing up and down the floor at the foot of her bed, casting furtive glances her way, looking anxious and forlorn.

"Would you stop hovering, please" she tells him. "See if you can get a hold of someone in CIC, find out what's going on."

As he bounds off, she lies back once more, closes her eyes…

… and finds herself back in the Opera House. They stand at the threshold, the five of them. Six still has Laura's hand clutched in her sure grip, she smiles down at her, she is beautiful.

"We have to go in together, Laura," she says, "but only you can see."

They step into the room beyond and find themselves in the auditorium; the stage is directly opposite them. They walk towards it, turn in a slow circle. Across the expanse, on a raised dais, Laura can make out five figures, wreathed in light. She takes a hesitant step forwards, then another. The light is blinding, the five on the dais are resplendent with it.

She takes another step forwards, blinks against the glare. She can almost make them out. Four of the five she can now identify, not by their features but by their posture. Another step brings her closer to the imposing figure in the middle. She blinks again, trying to clear her vision against the blinding light. She blinks and…

… it's Cottle she sees. He's shining a penlight in her eyes, around him, Life Station springs back into focus.

"What?" Her sense of displacement, of loss, is so great that for a moment she has to fight back tears. So close, she was so close.

"I thought you might have passed out again," Cottle grouse. "From what I hear, it would have been the third time today. I've half a mind to keep you here anyway, twice is twice too many as it is."

"But?"

"But you were just asleep, though how you can sleep with all this racket going on is beyond me, and I need the bed." He produces a syringe. "Now hold still." A swift prick and numbness starts to invade her hand. "Local anesthetic, it'll take a minute to kick in."

"How long was I asleep?" she absentmindedly asks. Only now latching on to what he just said about needing the bed, Laura looks around sickbay and finally notices that it's flooded with people, all injured to some degree, there are bloody noses, black eyes, bruised faces. Most of the injured are seated on beds and chairs but there are even a few seated on the floor, for want of space.

"How should I know, I'm not your nursemaid," Cottle mumbles as he calmly disinfects his hands and picks up a suturing needle. "A few minutes, five."

"What happened?" she asks, indicating the chaos surrounding them while he starts to carefully stitch her up.

"Riots. Stupid knuckleheads started fighting amongst themselves." Off her horrified gasp he adds, "No fatalities, nothing major, cuts and bruises mostly. Now hold still." He finishes her stitches and starts putting gauze and bandages over the wound. "Riots and looting, it's the order of the day, today. Would you believe just an hour ago, a bunch of these retards raided my stores? Made off with a whole mess of things they'll have absolutely no use for, Bittamucin, Serisone, and of course the stuff they probably came for, any and every type of narcotic they could get their hands on. Made off with the last of my stash of New Caprica leaf, too. Frakkers. Likely wanting to go out in a psychedelic haze, now that the end of the world is once again upon us."

During his diatribe, Laura's thoughts turn once again to her vision. She needs to know, to see, she was so close. She closes her eyes, concentrates but is brought out of it when Cottle ties off her bandage none too gently. She almost snarls at him as he gets up and moves away. "I'll get you your brace so you can get out of here."

She blinks back tears of frustration when a nurse instantly takes his place beside her bed but quickly gathers herself when she sees the look of unease on the young woman's face.

"Madam President?" The young nurse swallows convulsively.

"Yes?" Laura prods.

"There's this man…" The young woman hesitates and Laura's nerves fray some more.

With everything that's happened today, she doesn't have much left in her to give. She's run the gamut of emotions since this morning, was it only this morning? From overjoyed to sorely disappointed to ecstatic and scared and angry, it's drained her, robbed her of her defenses, she feels she's just about at the end of her tether. Still, she puts everything she has into schooling her face into a patient mask as she gently encourages the nurse. "I'm not going to bite, just tell me what it is."

"I'm not sure if it's okay but I think he was one of Ms. Foster's interns, so…" Again, she hesitates.

"Just tell me what it is."

"A note, Ma'am. He told me to give it to you and only you."

"Thank you," Laura manages as with a sinking feeling in her gut she accepts the note the nurse thrusts at her. It's a bit tricky to unfold one handed but she has to when Cottle sits back down beside her and starts strapping on the brace. The message is short and to the point, the implications take her breath away.

**Hangar deck,**

**Be there in ten minutes**

**Come alone or the child dies**

She feels al the blood drain from her face, sways and for a moment, she fears she might faint. It's not difficult to guess who the_ child _is. Cottle looks at her in concern as she takes a deep breath, trying to regain her equilibrium.

"Laura? What's going on? Cottle barks just as Lee returns, his face deadly pale.

"Lee?" His dazed look scares her, what else could possibly go wrong to have him so rattled? "Lee, tell me what's wrong?"

His answer makes her gasp. The note flutters to the bed as her hand goes up to her mouth to mask her shock.

"Cylon raiders," Lee says. "Scouting party. Cavil and the rest of them, they found us."


	7. Chapter 7

Bill barges into CIC and to his relief finds Gaeta and Dualla both at their stations, Helo is at the command station, Saul is there too, looking vaguely uncomfortable, standing a little way back, perhaps unsure of his place. While he hurried down here, thoughts of Laura had haunted his footsteps. How he had almost lost her again, just when they had finally, truly, found each other. How pale and still she had seemed, almost buried under Lee's bulk. How alive she had looked, writhing on top of him hours before, how she had giggled when they'd finally gotten to the head and he'd soaped her up, how she'd stilled when he'd knelt down before her to worship her anew. Her throaty moans as he'd pleasured her, her languid caresses afterwards.

He forcefully has to bury those thoughts down deep, has to leave them behind as he gears up for battle. It almost feels like a betrayal, as if by leaving thoughts of her behind, he's leaving _her_ behind as well. It's a strange sort of comfort to think that along with her, he's leaving behind a large part of himself too, that part of him that belongs to her now.

"Sitrep," he barks as he slips into Admiral mode. Helo casts a glance at Saul and then steps up.

"Cylon raiders, Sir," he reports, "Two of them jumped in and out of our airspace five minutes ago. We've already been in contact with the Rebel Base ship; they've confirmed the raiders belong to what remains of the Cylon fleet."

"How many Basestars do they have left, do the Rebels know?"

"They're not sure, Sir. They guesstimate anywhere between six to eight, maybe more." Eight Basestars against one beat up Battlestar and an equally beat up Basestar, he doesn't like those odds.

"How long until they're on top of us?"

"No way to gauge," Helo shrugs. "Any moment now." The muscles in his jaw clench and unclench. Bill remembers he didn't request for Sharon to be brought back up. The young man's wife is down on the surface and he's stuck up here, Bill can relate.

"Alright, I want the CAP trebled."

"Already done, Sir. Starbuck is out there spearheading them."

"Good. Now let's get our people off the surface," he orders, "and have the Raptors recalled from their scouting runs, asap."

"Aye, sir." Helo nods with a barely suppressed look of relief and goes to work. Bill looks after him for a moment, sweeps his gaze across CIC. They're all at their posts, all diligently acquitting themselves of their various tasks, even though their disappointment at what they found down below is still so fresh. They make him proud.

When his gaze comes to rest on Saul, his first instinct is to look away, but Lee has told him how Saul stepped up and offered himself in exchange for the hostages on the Rebel Base star, in essence offered himself up for Laura, and he can't back away from that. He can't back away from a lifetime of shared memories either, so instead he nods and steps a bit closer.

"Any insights?"

Saul nods back stiffly "Not a frakking one." He says, running his hand over his bald pate.

"Pity, I could have used some pointers right about now, would have made for a nice bonus to balance out this new heritage of yours." He smiles a tight smile to take the sting out of his words and watches his old friend relax his stance a bit.

"Bill," Saul murmurs, "I'm sorry, I had no idea."

He holds up his hand to ward off further apologies. "You had no choice in the matter either, except the one you made when you gave yourself up to save our people. I trusted Sharon, I'm going to continue trusting you."

"I won't betray that trust, not if I can help it."

The caveat is what worries Bill. It was always there with Sharon too, the chance that his trust would turn out to be misplaced in the face of Cylon programming, but Sharon has proven herself faithful time and again. Then again, Saul is a different breed of Cylon, one of the Final Five, an unknown variable in a frakked up equation. Still, even though Bill still feels betrayed and heartsick, he knows Saul would never have chosen this fate for himself, would never have willingly chosen to be the thing he has fought against his entire life.

So he tells him the only thing he can tell him. "I know, old friend." His heart crimps in his chest at the look of relief on Saul's face. He turns on his heels. "Gaeta, tell the fleet to stand by for emergency jump coordinates. Dee, get me a line to the Rebel Base ship."

While he's waiting for the call to be put through, Saul leans a little closer. "How's Roslin?" he asks with genuine concern. "We heard what happened, frakking ingrates."

The mention of Laura brings the fear gnawing at his guts back into focus. It's strange standing here in the middle of CIC trying to divert the latest crisis without her by his side. "She's okay. Lee is taking her to see Cottle; the bullet cracked her cast, minor damage only, fortunately."

"That woman has the luck of the Gods." Saul drawls, something like admiration coloring his voice.

"Yeah well." He emits a short bark of laughter. "I'm sure she doesn't see it that way at this particular juncture."

He flashes back to the sight of her blood, staining her skin, a forceful reminder of her mortality. The thought sobers him quickly. She might still die this day, they might all die, and if they don't, here's still her cancer, if they survive today, there's still Earth and all that entails. The Quorum and the press may have been placated, but there's still a whole fleet full of distressed and angry people out there, all itching to place the blame for their disappointment at somebody's feet. And who better to blame than the woman who'd carried them all along on the strength of her convictions, who'd made Earth real by the sheer force of her will alone, who'd dragged them all down here, in some cases kicking and screaming. Who better to blame for the loss of hope, than the person who gave it to them in the first place?

"Sir, I have the Baseship on line for you." Dee looks tired and worried and he suddenly feels the difficulties of today press in on him, a physical weight settling on his shoulders.

He picks up the horn shakes himself out of it. "Galactica actual here."

"Six," comes the succinct reply. "Go."

He decides to take a chance, give their fragile alliance the same courtesy he did Saul "We're distributing Emergency Jump Coordinates throughout the fleet. I'm about to take a leap of faith here. I need to know if this truce is going to stick with Cavil breathing down our necks."

"You already know our answer to that." The Six sounds tense, her voice is fraught with anger but smoothes out as she continues. "Our allegiance is with The Five. Three remain loyal to you, one is still unaccounted for but evidently he or she is in the fleet as well, so we side with you."

"Good." He nods, though she can't see it. "Stand by to receive Emergency Jump Coordinates then." He gestures to Gaeta to transmit the coordinates and the young man looks troubled but obeys his command without comment.

"Are we going to run?" The Six asks, sounding genuinely curious and a little disdainful.

"Not unless we have to," he replies and because they need any edge they can get, he decides to push things a little further. "Any insights on how we beat them back are more than welcome."

"Working on it," she says, "it all depends on how many ships he still has at his disposal. Meanwhile stand by to receive detailed schematics of our Basestars; maybe your people can use them to tactical advantage."

He smiles in relief, his gambit paid off. "Appreciated. Galactica actual out."

Dee shuts down the comm. link, looks at him apprehensively. "What is it?" he snaps.

"We're unable to reach the ground team, Sir," she reports. "They're not responding to our hails."

"Radioactive interference?" Maybe they moved into a more heavily irradiated area, he thinks, even as worry starts to eat away at him.

"No, they're just not picking up."

It strikes him for the first time that, apart from the marines and techs that accompanied them down, the entire ground crew now consists of Cylons. Sharon, Galen, Sam Anders, Caprica Six, Leoben, D'Anna and her squadron of Centurions. And Baltar of course, though for all they know, he's a Cylon himself. The thought does nothing to comfort him, they're still his responsibility, his alliance to uphold, his people to rescue.

"Alright, keep trying. Are the Raptors back yet?"

"First ones are setting down as we speak, Sir. We'll have them all back in about five minutes."

"Divert two to the surface, tell them to bring up the ground crew, asap," he says and turns towards Gaeta. "What about those schematics?" He steps up to Gaeta's console, frowns down at the maps scrolling along his board. The young man still looks grey around the edges, there's a sheen of sweat on his face. He's clearly still in a considerable amount of pain and moving around his station with only one leg is obviously draining, but he seems as determined as the rest of the crew to do his job.

"Working on it, Sir," he reports. "I need to make some calculations, but I think that if we hit them here, here and here," he points towards three areas along the ships dorsal area, "we can take them out, they'll lose structural integrity, go into an uncontrollable spin."

"As soon as you're done with your calculations, give the info to Starbuck, good work." He pats the young man on the shoulder. "Did you have a chance to look at those computers and disks you brought up with you?"

"I had them set up in the Ward Room, Sir, under maximum security. Two of my techs are working on them but I have no idea if they'll be able to salvage anything off of them. The books we brought up are a bust, mostly, they're illegible with age. We caught a few mentions of the thirteenth tribe, Cylons, a conflict, nothing that makes any sense."

"Keep at it, the President will join us shortly, maybe she can make sense of it, she's done so before."

"Yes, Sir."

"Admiral, Sir." It's Dee, she sounds urgent. "I have a call for you from Doc. Cottle."

"Put him through." With a sinking feeling in his gut, Bill picks up the phone

"Admiral, we have a situation down here," Cottle says without preamble. With an urgent wave of his hand, Bill motions for Saul to pick up the other extension.

"The President, is she okay?"

"How the hell should I know?" Cottle sounds even more exasperated with his wayward patient than usual, but underneath, Bill can detect the same worry that's eating away at his own gut. The good doctor after all carries a torch for Laura nearly big enough to rival his own. "The blasted woman ran off with Lee in tow just now."

"Where to?"

"Hangar Deck."

"What?" His breath leaves him, what the hell would she be doing down there?

"Someone handed her a note, it says, wait," He hears the rustling of paper and then Cottle's voice comes back. "It reads, _Hangar Deck. Be there in ten minutes. Come alone or the child dies_."

"Frak!" It doesn't take a genius to figure out who _the child_ is and Bill curses Laura for her lack of survival instinct even as he knows that, being Laura Roslin, there's nothing else she could have done, no other choice she could have made. With the child - _any_ child, but _this_ child in particular - in danger, there would be absolutely no option for Laura other than to try and save her, even if it means putting herself at risk. At least she apparently allowed Lee to come with her, he finds some small relief in that. "How much of a head start do they have?"

"Two minutes."

"Right." He hangs up, makes for the hatch. "Saul, you have the con."

Before he reaches the hatch, he feels Saul's hand clamping down on his shoulder. "Bill, you can't leave right in the middle…"

He whirls around, almost punches him in red raged fury. "Saul, I don't give a flying frak! She's in trouble."

"Bill, pull yourself together. What would she want you to do?" Saul shakes him even as Bill tries to pull away from him with all the desperation of a drowning man. "Think! What would Laura Roslin want you to do?"

"I can't lose her." It's all he can think about, _Laura's in danger, you have to save her, Laura's in trouble, go to her._

"You have to trust her, Bill." Saul is practically shouting at him. "You have to trust that she knows what she's doing, that she's doing what's right, for you, for me, for all of us. Damned woman always has."

As the truth of Saul's words penetrates and the red haze fades, the proximity alarms start to blare.

"Cylon Basestars, Sir, six of them." Gaeta shouts.

"Launch the alert fighters." Bill spins on his heels, spits words with the staccato precision of machine gun fire. "Helo! Get down to the hangar bay, Saul, go with him, fill him in, don't do anything stupid, just get them both back, safely. Take a headset, keep me posted."

Helo turns on his heels with a puzzled glance at Saul, who hurries after him. For a moment he questions the wisdom of sending Helo on a mission to save his own daughter and the woman he hates more than anything, but then he knows the young man is honorable, a good soldier, and will do everything within his power to both save his child and preserve the life of his President. And if it comes down to a choice between the two? Well, that's where Saul comes in. Saul would not hesitate. If given a choice, he would do anything, sacrifice Hera and Helo, even sacrifice himself, to keep Laura safe, if only to prove his fealty to humanity. What Bill wants most of all is to go with them, retrieve Laura himself but he can't leave his post now, Saul is right. His duty to the fleet outweighs his personal concerns. He knows Laura would agree, in fact, she would probably airlock his ass for dereliction of duty if he were to come after her while they're under siege.

"Do we jump, Sir?" Gaeta asks.

"Not yet, get me a line..."

Dee interrupts him. "Sir, one of the enemy Basestars is hailing us," she says.

"Put them through." He picks up the handset, almost physically feels the part of him that is the Admiral move once more to the forefront.

"Admiral." It's Cavil, and he hadn't expected otherwise. The Cylon's voice is sickly sweet, the threat underneath blatant. "We meet again."

"What do you want?" Bill snarls. Of all the different Cylon models, he dislikes and mistrusts this one the most. The pious exterior, the snake hidden underneath, fill him with revulsion.

"Same thing you do, Admiral, to claim Earth as our new home."

Bill cannot contain a short bark of laughter at that, nor suppress the thought of how Laura would have reacted with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. _Please be okay, Laura, _he pleads_, please don't do anything foolish, please be safe_. He pleads with her, even as he listens for a reaction from Cavil. The silence on the other end tells him his unexpected response has Cavil rattled.

Finally, Cavil speaks again, more cautiously this time. "Give us Earth. Leave, now, and you will escape unharmed."

"In that case I suggest you first go down and take a look around, see for yourself what you're claiming and then maybe we'll talk," he says, determining there and then that even if Earth is a blasted wasteland, there will be no more running, this is where they make their stand. Besides, there's still a team on the ground that needs to be retrieved, there's still Laura's whispered words, _I don't know what it all means, yet, but I saw something, realized something, there's something here, it just needs to come clear _she'd said and he's learned to listen to those hunches of hers. If there's something to find, some glimmer of hope in the midst of devastation, she'll find it, but not if he just blithely hands over Earth to Cavils faction. Then, there's the alliance with the Rebel Cylons to consider, too, this is not the time to make unilateral decisions.

"Hold on," Cavil says. "I will confer with my brothers; we'll come back to you shortly. No fancy moves in the meantime, Admiral, keep those Vipers of yours on a leash, or we blast you all out of the sky."

"Understood." Bill acknowledges and nods for Dee to cut communications. "Any word from the ground yet?"

"No, Sir."

"Get me Helo or Saul. I need to know what's going on."

As she puts him through, Bill sends up a fervent prayer to her Gods, the ones she's believed in so passionately throughout their journey, the ones he's so frequently renounced for burdening her with a destiny that no one should have to face.

The sound of gunfire when the connection is established makes his heart drop to the pit of his stomach. He clutches the horn convulsively. People are shouting, he can hear Saul's voice, barking at someone to get Cottle.

"Saul!" His shout thunders around CIC and he can feel the eyes of his crew on him, can see their shocked faces, hear their urgent, frightened whispers but all he can focus on is Saul's voice.

"Bill, we need a medivac down here. Helo and Lee are down."

"Saul!" he barks, his knuckles white with strain around the horn. Lee and Helo, he cannot bear to lose either one, but they're surely alive or Saul wouldn't be asking for medical assistance. It's as far as he gets, before his one overriding fear outstrips all other concerns. "What about the President? Is she okay?"

"She's gone, Bill." Saul sounds horrified. "I'm sorry. She's gone."


	8. Chapter 8

As they reach the hangar deck, Laura stops, pulls Lee closer. She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose with her splinted hand and stares at him, hard, taking in his earnest face, the resolved set of his jaw.

"I need to go in alone. Stay here," she tells him. Over his protests, she glances at her guards, loyal to a fault, they've followed her here against her express wishes. "You two, stay here as well."

"No can do, Ma'am."

"You can if I order you to," she says, clenching her one good fist by her side to keep from shouting. "I will not have this child endangered. They said come alone, and I will."

"Madam President, you can't be serious," Lee argues, catching a hold of her arm. "What if they kill you, right there? What if they just shoot you down? Somebody already tried once today."

"Why go to the trouble of grabbing Hera, if what they want is simply to kill me?" she says, doing her best to sound reasonable, to not let her impatience bleed through. "It's not as if there hasn't been ample opportunity for that. All the security measures we dream up won't stop one man with a gun and a desire to exact retribution, the events of the day made that abundantly clear, if nothing else."

Lee flinches, lets go of her arm, but he doesn't back down, doesn't give in. He makes her proud. "I still can't let you go in there alone, it's too dangerous and besides, my father would never forgive me." He gives her a wry smile which she reciprocates before subjecting him to the full force of her unfettered glare, her schoolmarm glower, the one she's perfected staring down unruly quorum members these past few years.

"You can and you will," she says as her clenched fist beats a tattoo against her thigh. "This is not a negotiation. I'm going in there, by myself, end of story."

"Madam President…" Her guards speak simultaneously. She glares at them but they just look straight ahead, stone faced, their fierce dedication paradoxically stopping them from obeying her wishes.

"You stay here, all of you, end of discussion," she says. She's getting exasperated, there's no time for this. "If you don't, I can find myself a new security team, do I make myself clear? One that will respect my wishes!" She hates how harsh her voice sounds, how callous she can be when the situation demands it, hates most of all that she has to do this to these men who've so faithfully been by her side all this time.

They stand taller, their faces wearing identical, grim expressions. "Fire us if you must, but you should know, that even if you do, we're not leaving your side."

She almost falters at that, but her fear for Hera's safety outstrips any other concerns. "Please, Bryn, Jarez. Your job is to take care of me so I can do what I have to do, so I can do _my_ job. I know you think you failed me earlier today, but you never have." She looks at them earnestly, each in turn. "You never have," she repeats, "but you will, if you keep me from doing what I have to do here, today. I'm begging you to back down, please."

Her guards exchange a glance, communicate without words, then Jarez relaxes his posture infinitesimally and Bryn looks down at her with a faint, half smile. Somehow, it does nothing to alleviate the stiff set of his mouth but there's a flicker of understanding in his eyes, and she thinks she can even detect a glimmer of pride. "Five minutes," he says. "If you're not back her in five minutes, we're coming after you."

"Thank you." She grabs his hand, squeezes it, flashes Jarez a grateful smile.

When she starts to move towards the Hangar Deck, Lee follows her. She glances at Bryn and Jarez and they nod at her, bar Lee's way. Her heart tears in her chest when she sees the desperation on his face. Wanting to give him something to ease his pain, Laura approaches him, ghosts her fingers over his tight jaw for a moment. "You have to stay," she tells him. "If something happens to me, you have to step up, Lee. I only wish I could have given you more. I wish…"

His face twists, grief etches itself around the edge of his mouth, settles in the corners of his eyes and makes the muscles in his jaw bunch. He looks defeated for a moment but then shakes his head in fierce denial and makes a grab for her. Lightning quick, her guards put him in a headlock. Having decided on their course of action, they're now wholly committed to allowing things to play out according to her wishes and she once again counts herself lucky for their steadfast presence by her side.

With a last glance at the three men, Laura resolutely turns and heads out onto the Hangar Deck. It's in chaos, Raptors are lowering down to the deck, Vipers are being pushed into launch tubes, deck hands mill about. The pandemonium on the deck overwhelms her for a moment but then it resolves itself into recognizable patterns; organized chaos, then. She cautiously moves a few steps forward and spots Hera, across the cavernous space, beside one of the hydraulic platforms where a Raptor sits, waiting for her as if it's just another day, just another shuttle ride from the Galactica to Colonial One like so many times before.

Hera waves at her, she looks unharmed and not all that scared besides and Laura feels inordinately grateful for that small mercy, the child has been through enough already. In the chaos, it seems no one has noticed the incongruity of a little girl being down here during a time of crisis. A young man, inconspicuous in an orange jumpsuit designating him as one of the deck crew, holds fast to Hera's shoulder, beckons Laura closer.

"Over here," he says. He looks around suspiciously before his eyes land on her again, there's a strange light in them she can't quite place. Mostly, he just looks cold and aloof, as if what is happening here has nothing to do with him, but there's something expectant in his stance, something coiled and waiting; hungry. "You come alone?"

"Yes," she says and walks towards them, her eyes on Hera. The child is standing stock still, her eyes riveted on Laura. "Hi, sweetie," Laura greets her. "Are you okay?"

Hera nods solemnly, holds her hand out to Laura. She grabs the tiny fingers with her good hand and when the man lets her go Hera throws her free arm around Laura's legs and clutches her in a tight grip. More scared than she looked then. Laura bends down, hugs her back and ruffles her hair for a moment, feeling such tenderness towards the child. They'd spent quite a bit of time together on New Caprica, and she hasn't seen much of her since, her parents having been understandably reluctant to let Laura near her. She was, after all, the woman who took their child from them, with the best of intentions, but still.

Straightening up, he puts her hand on the girl's chubby shoulder, turns towards their captor and finds herself staring down the barrel of a gun for the second time that day. He keeps his body between the gun and the rest of the Hanger Deck, they're half obscured by the craft they're standing next to anyway and the deck crew is so intent on their duties that they don't notice anything's amiss.

From out of the corner of her eye, Laura sees faces peeking out at them from inside the Raptor. She recognizes some of them, Caleb, one of Tory's young interns; he must have been the one to deliver the note to the nurse in sickbay, Jane something, a woman she's seen around CIC half a dozen times. The pilot in the cockpit looks vaguely familiar but she doesn't know his name, nor does she recognize the man currently holding a gun at her or the two just inside the Raptor's hatch, armed with what she thinks are submachine guns. The thought that all these people banded together and abducted Hera just so they could get to her, leaves her with a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Get in," the man with the gun in her face tells her.

"Please, we don't have to do this, Mr…?"

"Cranach. Now shut the frak up and get in the Raptor!" he snarls at her. His sudden outburst unnerves her, it twists his carefully blank face into an ugly sneer as he motions with his gun for them to get up the ladder and into the spacecraft.

Laura shakes her head, steps around Hera so she's between Hera and the men threatening them. "Not before you let the child go, you got what you wanted; I'll come quietly as soon as she's safe."

"What makes you think we're only after you? Always so full of yourself, aren't you, Madam President?" He steps up to her, shoves the gun into her ribcage. "Now get in."

Wincing and cursing herself, Laura backpedals, tries to wrap her head around the new information. She can't quite believe she's so badly misjudged things, thinking she could swap herself for Hera and then talk her way out of the situation once the child was safe. Obviously, these people have a different plan that involves both of them, not just Laura herself, which puts a whole new spin on things. Her only hope now is that Bryn and Jarez will be able to extract them both but in order for them to do that, she needs to buy some time. If they get in the Raptor, it's over. "I don't know what you have in mind," she tells their captor, trying to engage him, "but whatever it is, you have to know she can't help you, she's an innocent in all of this."

"Nobody's innocent!" He jams the gun harder into her ribs, simultaneously grabs a hold of her bad hand, twists it and the pain of it makes her knees buckle. Tears threaten to spill from her eyes as she sucks in a breath, trying to suppress a moan. Hera instantly clutches her tighter and she can vaguely hear the child call her by the half garbled pet name she used when they were down on New Caprica. "Lau-la? Lau-la hurt?"

She pats the child, trying to soothe her, meanwhile beseeching their captor. "Please, don't do this, she's just a child." She's not above pleading if it will get them out of this situation, she'll think of creative ways to airlock the lot of them when they're safe.

"I'm not telling you again," Cranach threatens, letting up on the pressure on her ribs and aiming his gun at Hera instead, "get in!"

He impels Laura back, releasing her hand with a vicious push and she stumbles a few steps backwards, Hera clinging to her like a barnacle. Seeing no choice but to obey his command, Laura raises one hand in a gesture of surrender, ushers Hera towards the Raptor, when a voice rings out across the deck.

"Stop right there!" It's Helo, striding towards them, gun drawn and pointing at Cranach's head. Saul and Lee are with him, both bearing arms as well. She spots Bryn and Jarez up on the gangway circling the hangar deck. "Lower your weapons and let them go!" Helo commands, his face is a mask of righteous fury.

Laura instinctively takes a step sideways, out of the line of immediate fire, taking Hera with her, shielding her from the various guns pointed at them as best she can. She sees a flicker of gratitude in the young man's eyes, a touch of acknowledgement, right before all hell breaks loose.

Apparently, their presence on the deck has finally drawn the attention of the deck crew. Tyrol's replacement, Chief Laird, comes striding towards them, yelling at them. "What the frak are you doing on my deck?" He approaches at an angle, can't see all the guns pointing every which way, is too startled when he rounds the Raptor and finds himself in the presence of the President of the Twelve Colonies to notice much else besides.

"Madam President? Apologies, I hadn't noticed…" It's as far as he gets, his sudden appearance amidst their tense standoff brings an already volatile situation to a head. Laura can't make out where the first shot comes from but all of a sudden guns are blazing. The chief's head explodes in a shower of blood and grey matter and she ducks down, protecting Hera from the sight. Around them, bullets fly, pinging off the Raptor's wings and canopy, but miraculously, none of them hit home.

Seeing her chance in the confusion, Laura drops to the deck with the trembling girl in her arms, intent on sliding under the Raptor and coming out on the other side, the side where people aren't firing guns at them. Her plans are thwarted by a strong hand grabbing her wrist. Cranach twists her arm behind her back, brings her up and propels her up the few steps and onto the Raptor's wing. Laura and Hera stumble towards the open hatch where the two men with the sub machine guns stop firing long enough for them to make it across unharmed.

The gunfire tapers off while they're standing on the wing, utterly exposed, and Laura realizes their would-be rescuers are at a distinct disadvantage; they can't shoot indiscriminately without running the chance of hitting either herself or Hera. Caleb reaches for Hera from inside the open hatch and wrenches her from Laura's grasp. Cranach pushes Laura through the hatch, down to the ground, and immediately, the hatch starts to close. A shudder goes through the Raptor as the landing platform starts raising them to the landing bay. Laura twists herself around to get a last look at the battle raging below through the lowering hatch and wishes she hadn't. Lee and Helo are both down; Saul is scrambling to get them out of the line of fire. As she watches, a burst of gunfire from one of the submachine guns catches Bryn in the chest and he tumbles down from the gangway to the deck below.

When the hatch clangs shut, she experiences a moment of pure terror, it quickens her pulse, steals her breath away. She realizes she's all alone in this now and it's up to her to get Hera and herself out of this mess. Helo and Lee and Bryn are hurt, possibly dead, and that's something she can't bear to think about so she shoves it to the back of her mind. She needs to concentrate on getting them out of this predicament. _Think, Laura_, she tells herself, _buckle up and get a grip, think!_

These people want something from her, from them, and they are obviously prepared to go to great lengths to get it. There's some relief in that thought, but terror too. As long as they want something, Hera and herself will probably be reasonably safe, but anyone who attempts to rescue them, attempts to stand in the way of these people, will suffer the consequences, as has just been so pertinently demonstrated. She is not prepared to pay that price, has never put her own life before anyone else's and is not about to start now.

Resolve firmly in place, she draws herself up, casts a look about the cabin. Hera is clutched in Caleb's grip but as soon as their eyes meet, the young girl wrenches herself loose and throws herself at Laura. She catches the child in a tight grip and as Hera's arms wind around her neck, Laura finally finds she can breathe again and an eerie calmness settles over her. _Whatever_ _it takes, whatever I have to do_, she promises the child, _this will end, you will suffer no further harm_.

She looks about the cabin and the faces looking back at her carry expressions of anger and outright hatred as she'd expected, but, curiously, there's a fanatical sort of hope there as well, an avid expectation. It's a look she knows only too well from way back when she first took on the mantle of the Dying Leader, a look she's never quite been able to reconcile herself with.

"Please don't do this," she says to no one in particular, looking at all of them in turn, trying to ascertain which one will be most amenable to talk to her. She takes off her glasses, hangs them from the V of her blouse, she knows she looks softer without them, more malleable. "Please tell me what you want and I'll do everything in my power to help you. Just please don't do this."

There's no reply, Jane, the young woman from CIC, shifts uncomfortably in her seat, the two gunmen look at the floor, avoiding her gaze, Caleb looks about to say something but a look from Cranach shuts him up.

The oppressive silence is at last broken by a clanging noise and she can tell they've reached the flight pod from the tremor that goes through the craft as the platform shudders to a stop. When Cranach motions for them to sit down, Laura acquiesces, straps Hera and herself into their respective safety harnesses on autopilot.

"Where are you taking us?" she asks, and he looks like he's about to answer her when the pilot starts cursing. The flight pod's outer doors are closing; someone must have given orders to keep them from leaving she realizes. Bill, probably. The thought of him nearly incapacitates her. He must have heard what happened in the meantime, must be agonizing over Lee, frantic with worry over her safety.

Cranach jumps to his feet, moves to the co-pilot seat. "Go! Just go!" he tells the pilot. He carefully splays his fingers across the back of the seat before him, like a man impervious to doubt. "We can make it!"

The doorway looms larger and larger, the gap between them growing exponentially smaller as they hurtle towards the closing doors at breakneck speed. Laura instinctively ducks her head as the Raptor squeezes between the lowering doors, clears them with an inch to spare, and then they're out amongst the stars.

Out of immediate danger, Jane sighs in relief, turns towards her; there's an eager gleam in her eyes. "Earth, Madame President," she says, addressing her by her title as if it were the most natural thing in the universe for the two of them to be sitting there talking; as if she and her friends haven't just taken the President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol hostage.

"We're going down to Earth." Caleb joins her, "and you're going to get what you deserve." He looks at her with such a mixture of disgust and rabid anticipation Laura has to close her eyes for a second.

"Shut the frak up, all of you!" Cranach interjects and Laura swivels her face towards the front of the Raptor. Cranach is clearly the one in charge; the others shut up immediately when he tells them, do his bidding. He looks to be more in control of himself than the rest too, despite his earlier outburst. He does have that same fanatical edge, but it's tempered by practicality, so she figures he's the one to talk to. As her gaze travels towards where he's still standing behind the co pilot's seat, she spots something in the Raptor's side view window though, and gasps in shock, curses herself. She's known all along this was going to happen. She should have been prepared for it, should have used the knowledge to her advantage to keep Cranach and his people from taking them off of Galactica. Instead her nerves are frayed from the long, difficult day, she's tired and slow and she just lost what may have been their one chance.

Cranach follows her shocked gaze and curses.

"Frakking Basestars! Quinn, get us out of here, now!"

Laura is glued to her seat as the Raptor makes a turn and four more Basestars come into view. Vipers have formed a crude cordon around the Cylon craft but at least two of the Basestars have a relatively unimpeded shot at their Raptor. As she watches, missiles streak towards them and Vipers move to intercept. Two of the Colonial birds explode as they're hit, the others start diverting missiles, playing decoy, like Lee did so long ago when the worlds first ended, taking them from their path and then blowing them out of the sky left and right. She watches as two, three, four more Vipers go up in flames, thinks she can spot Kara's shiny new bird leading a squadron of Vipers against the projectiles, expertly weaving in and out amongst friend and foe, taking missiles out with practiced ease. But there are too many of them and in a matter of moments three missiles break through the Colonial defenses and come for their lone Raptor with deadly purpose. An audible gasp goes through the Raptor and Laura sends up a prayer to the Gods, as the missiles close in on their location and then the sky darkens and the stars are blotted out when the Galactica ponderously moves into the Cylon's firing solution, shielding them.

_Bill_, she thinks, _oh Gods, Bill. I'm so sorry, all those pilots, all those lives lost. This has to stop, this has got to stop.  
_  
Quinn throws their craft around, and they're rocked from side to side as missiles strike the Galactica and the shockwave from the resulting explosions make their Raptor pitch and roll. One of the missiles streaks off the Galactica's hull and explodes right over their position and debris showers down on them, the pitter patter sounding somehow innocuous, like rain on a rooftop.

"Prepare for inter atmosphere jump!" Quinn shouts and Laura looks on in horror as the last of the missiles escapes both the Galactica and her Vipers. It's heading straight for them, growing larger and larger and even as she feels the familiar tug of the jump in the pit of her stomach she prays they make it and then the world folds in on itself and everything disappears.


	9. Chapter 9

Gravity crushes her as they come out of the jump and the Raptor continues to plummet through a covering of clouds towards Earth for a breathtaking moment. Her entire body is pinned against her seat. She can feel the bones in her damaged hand grind together and the pain makes her nauseous. The urge to throw up is overwhelming but she fights it back with an efficiency borne from long practice. Beside her, Hera whimpers and Laura manages to stroke her shoulder though the effort to raise her hand against the extravagant G-Force bearing down on them is almost too much.

Thankfully, when they clear the cloud deck, their pilot is able to take them out of their dive and as the Raptor levels off the pressure eases and then they're zooming along Earth's surface. She cranes her neck to see out the Raptors front canopy. From what she can see of the lay of the land, the curve of the bay beneath them, they are flying over roughly the same area where they set down this morning, and from her vantage point, she notes that the devastation they encountered earlier indeed spreads as far as the eye can see. She'd known the truth of it, the extent of the wreckage, from Kara's report earlier, but it's still a bitter disappointment to see the evidence with her own two eyes. She blinks back tears, sits back in her chair and hugs Hera close, whispering words of comfort as much to soothe the child as to calm herself down.

Their abductors crowd forward to get a look at Earth and their gasps of sorrow and disappointment fill the cabin. "I knew it!" she hears Caleb shout. "Didn't I tell you they're just blowing smoke? Nothing could have survived down there!" He sounds oddly vindicated; they must have had a discussion about the truth of her statements to the press and the quorum, the purpose of the scouting missions.

"So it's true." Jane slumps down beside her and she looks so lost that for a second there, all Laura wants to do is hug her and try to take her pain away. The illusion of shared grief is broken when Caleb stomps towards them, wearing a feral look of hatred that turns his young face ancient and ugly.

"This is your fault, you bitch!" he shouts. He raises his hand to strike her and Laura, still belted into her seat, can do nothing but turn Hera away, press her small face against her chest and prepare for the blow as best she can. She keeps her eyes focused on Caleb, unflinching. She feels oddly sorry for him, for his loss, his sorrow turned to spite, but she's damned if she will cower under the force of his threat, his misplaced anger. There's a scuffle in the background and people are shouting and then Cranach appears in her line of sight. He grabs Caleb's hand as it speeds towards Laura's face, stops his downswing. He points his gun at his companions, glaring them down.

"Calm down, everyone," he says, his quiet voice more menacing than any shout. "We need to stick to our purpose, we're so close, don't ruin it."

He pushes Caleb towards the front, makes him sit down in the co pilot's seat and then seats himself opposite her in the crowded cabin, glaring at his cohorts. Quiet reigns as Quinn prepares to take them down to the surface.

"Thank you," Laura says when Cranach's eyes fall on her.

"Don't thank me," he replies. His tone is hard, his eyes fierce. "You don't know what we have in store for you."  
"No, no I don't, why don't you tell me and maybe we can resolve this together."

He laughs derisively. "You're the prophet, you figure it out."

She ignores his taunts, focuses on what's important instead. "Tell me what you want from us?" she pleads. "Maybe I can give it to you without all this. I need to get back up there."

"You need to shut up."

"Please, you saw those Basestars, the fleet is under siege."

"And whose fault is that?" he all but spits at her. "Who brought us here in the first place, huh?"

In the face of his unwavering hostility, Laura leans her head against the bulkhead and closes her eyes. She's culpable, there's no way around it, even if she had never imagined Earth the way they found it, she should have been prepared for any eventuality. Instead, she had not allowed herself to envision Earth as anything other than the way they saw it on Kobol, all green, verdant fields and clear skies that allowed for a breathtaking view of the constellations.

There is also no way she's going to convince Cranach, to back down. He's clearly not going to budge from his preconceived plans. She still has no idea what the purpose of their abduction is, but is under no illusion; whatever they mean to do to them will happen. There's precious little to be done against guns and hatred and Cranach's particular brand of cold blooded fanaticism and no one's coming down to rescue them.

Still, despite the threat to Hera and herself, all she can think about is Bill, how he has to face the Cylon fleet alone, without her; all she can see is Vipers going up in flames while trying to protect them. Helo and Lee may well be dead, Bryn too, and Bill and Kara are up there fighting a desperate battle against unimaginable odds. There are a few ships in the fleet outfitted with guns but basically, it's the Galactica and one Basestar against who knows how many Baseships? She'd counted six but there might have been more. Against such odds, all out war will surely spell the annihilation of the fleet.

She briefly wonders why the Cylons had held back. Before they jumped she'd only seen missiles launched at their own lone Raptor, they hadn't yet made a move to attack the rest of the fleet. She cringes at the thought that in the meantime they might have gone all out. Six Basestars means an overwhelming number of Raiders might have already launched against her people and she's stuck down here, unable to do a thing about it. She feels helpless, and that is not something she's accustomed to, it angers her immeasurably.

For a moment she questions her decision to go after Hera alone, maybe she shouldn't have exposed herself to such risk. People were dead because of it. She remains convinced going in with backup, or allowing her marines to go after the child themselves, would have most definitely resulted in Hera's death and who knows how many other's besides. Still, because of her, because she'd insisted she would handle this alone, lives had been lost, even as she'd been trying to spare them.

It seems these days that every decision she takes, every choice she makes, results in someone getting hurt, and she is so tired of it, so tired of it all.

But then she thinks of Bill, his face looms large before her mind's eye, his impossibly blue gaze, the small smile playing around his mouth, crinkling the corners of his eyes as he'd told her, down on Kobol, that he didn't follow her down there to navel gaze.

She draws strength from that, from him, and when their Raptor touches down, she unbuckles her seatbelt, helps Hera with hers and stands before anyone has a chance to force her to her feet. She straightens her jacket, and slips her glasses back on, squeezes Hera's hand and raises herself to her full height.

"Let's go," she says. "If I cannot dissuade you from doing whatever you're planning to do, then let's get this over with."

"You're not giving the orders here," Caleb says as he gets in her face. "You are not in command."

"No, I'm not," she sighs. "You are; I'm well aware of that. Lead on."

He bristles but follows as Jane tugs at his shirtsleeve. Cranach dons a headset, tells Quinn to stay alert and precedes Jane and Caleb out of the Raptor. Laura and Hera follow, the two gunmen bringing up the rear.

When Laura sets foot on Earth for the second time that day, there's the expected grief and despair, the crushing weight of hope lost. This is what she fought for these many long years, this is what should have made all of her sacrifices worthwhile, this should have been her prize; purchased at the cost of her peace of mind, her health, her heart almost and half of her soul. Earth should have been her salvation, instead it was another thing chipping away at her, there was barely anything left of her and still the Gods had insisted on taking more. Yet underneath the bitter disappointment, she feels a stirring of that sense of awe she took away from her vision in the temple earlier that day, a curious sense of rightness, of completion almost. Unbidden tears pool in her eyes, they sting like grief, burn like joy and she has to work hard to blink them away. If there's one thing she knows, it's that for better or worse, this is Earth and her destiny is here.

As she looks around, trying to clear her vision, she notices they landed near the beach, she even recognizes some of the ruins she traversed earlier that morning, a lifetime ago. It's nightfall now, the sun is setting, sinking behind the horizon, painting their surroundings a lurid red. To her right she catches a glimpse of the temple where she had her vision, where her many dead came to comfort her and gifted her their strength and encouragement. She can still feel the potency of their love, it gently urges her on, buoys her up when by all rights, she should have been prostrate on her feet by now. Instead, she finds she now exists in a state of euphoria, a feeling akin to what she experienced on Kobol, when they found the Tomb of Athena, after their long trek through the mountains; rapture born from utter exhaustion and grief and the concomitant sense of being on the brink of revelation.

She looks up at the sky, trying to make out if the constellations do indeed match those they witnessed on Kobol_, __Earth is the place where you can look up at the sky and see the constellations of the 12 colonies, _she hears herself say on that long ago day when they stood in the Tomb of Athena, united in wonder and joy_._ Today, there's no Aries, no Taurus or Gemini, no Cancer, Leo, Virgo or Libra twinkling down at her from the skies; the stars are hidden from sight. She strains to make out Galactica and the fleet, thinks that if she only tries hard enough she can maybe spot Raiders and Vipers battling it out, but the heavens are obscured by distance and the fog rising from the water.

"Lau-la?" Beside her, Hera looks up at her, tugs at her hand.

Laura crouches down so she can look the child in the eyes. "Yes, sweetie? What is it?"

"Are we there yet?"

"I think so," Laura replies, stroking Hera's soft, rounded cheeks before she straightens up again and casts a look around her. "I think we're almost there."

"Good."

Someone pushes against her shoulder none too gently and she starts to move, falling into step behind Jane and Caleb. They walk away from the beach, the setting sun at their backs casting long shadows ahead of them. Soon they are in between the ruins of what once must have been a commercial district. The washed out remains of various signs with illegible printing on them still have the unmistakable air of shop signs. She thinks she recognizes what must once have been a greengrocer's by the faded image of apples and oranges and a smiling banana. Further on, the placards advertise the remnants of a hardware store, a boutique, a coffee house. The faded reminders of a world irretrievably lost sadden her beyond measure. She tries not to think of all the people that must have once worked here, fought and loved and lived here, the joy and laughter of their everyday lives. It's unfathomable that their existence should have been so utterly erased from the earth, that these few paltry mementos should be all that's left to commemorate their passing.

A little ways beyond the coffee house, they come upon the remains of an ice cream shop and Laura stumbles, has to grab a hold of the ruined framework of the entryway as in her mind's eye, she sees Hera and Nicky and all the children of the fleet, sitting there. They're laughing and shouting at each other, happily gorging on sundaes, running around making a mess, faces and fingers sticky with ice cream and strawberry syrup, or maybe chocolate sauce. Tears well in her eyes at the sight of all those innocent, carefree faces. The thought that just such a scene may have ended in a firestorm of destruction, tearing flesh from bone, reducing living tissue to ash, makes nausea rise in her gorge once more. Panting, she bends over to catch her breath, fighting back the queasiness she blinks the tears from her eyes, wills the vision away. Her feeling of euphoria is fading fast, being replaced by heartache in the face of the utter devastation she just witnessed.

She's still reeling as a strong, impatient hand grabs her arm and drags her onwards. Unable to get her bearings as buildings lurch by and blackness crowds the edges of her vision, she has to gracelessly stumble along a few steps behind Caleb before she can get her feet under her, propel herself forward under her own steam again. As soon as she does, she wrenches her arm from his grasp, comforts Hera with a gentle squeeze of her arm as the child looks up with concern written all over her young face. The sight of those large frightened eyes more than anything else restores her to herself. Hera is still here by her side, what she saw may well have happened, but right here, right now, Hera is still beside her and that is what she needs to concentrate on.

Soon, the crowded streets of the commercial district give way to broader avenues where the scorched ruins of tall buildings and sprawling residences would once have housed the wealthier citizens, the more upscale businesses. They've been steadily climbing and Laura counts herself lucky she wore her boots instead of the usual high heels. The road is strewn with debris which makes walking them a hazardous affair as it is and the incline get's ever steeper. Before long what little strength she had left is all but depleted and she's utterly out of breath, her earlier euphoria gone, leaving sheer exhaustion in its wake. She is, as the saying goes she thinks, with a trace of bitter amusement, almost dead on her feet, feeling the weight of her years, the effects of her long illness.

When they are almost at the summit, they stop at the remains of what looks to have been the gated entrance to a park. Grateful for the reprieve, Laura leans against the broken gate and tries to compose herself. Night is falling rapidly now and in the lowering light she can just barely make out the blighted husks of a stand of trees, scoured black and devoid of leaves, bare limbs raising impotently heavenward in a gesture of mindless supplication. Further on, near the top of the incline, she can see the flicker of a campfire and several figures moving about. The firelight shimmers against the remains of a pillar, plays off the silhouette of a woman. Laura shivers in the rapidly cooling night air as she recognizes the platinum hair, the tall, slim figure.

Near the broken gate, Cranach speaks into his headset, nods and gestures them on. As they climb, Laura spots a few hardy weeds clinging to the legs of a remarkably intact, granite bench, hears the furtive rustle of what she thinks might be some sort of small animal nearby, a rabbit perhaps, or a squirrel. Nature reasserting itself. Despite the circumstances, she feels a small smile tug at the corners of her mouth at the thought as she makes her way to the top behind their captors.

Her smile soon falters as they reach the campfire and she recognizes not only Six, but Sharon and Baltar too. They're sitting beside the fire, bound hand and foot. Sharon has a nasty gash on her forehead, Gaius is rocking back and forth, muttering to himself, Six just sits and stares at the campfire, her gaze turned inward. Nearby, Laura can see one of the marines that came down with them this morning. He's face down on the ground; a large, dark stain on the back of his jacked, a few feet further along, one of his colleagues is staring sightlessly up at the heaves, the lower half of his face gone.

"What the frak happened," Cranach barks, as Laura once again hugs Hera close, presses her face against her hip so she won't see. "I thought I told you not to harm anyone!"

Two men step forward out of the darkness, heavily armed. "They put of more resistance than we thought," one of them says. She recognizes him as one of Gaeta's Tech Heads. The other is a familiar face from among the extra Marine Guards usually assigned to her on those occasions when extra protection is warranted.

"Liam?" He looks away, refuses to meet her eyes. At the sound of her voice, the captives around the campfire look up. Six gazes at her with an utter lack of surprise, Gaius stares up at her with meek apathy, Sharon looks shocked to see her, then, all color drains from her face when she spots Hera

"What the hell are you doing here with her?" Sharon spits and Laura is taken aback by her vehemence, confused that it's aimed at her before she remembers that neither of the Agathons have much reason to trust her, especially not where their child is concerned. Sharon is probably thinking Laura engineered all this for some arcane purpose all her own. The thought that Helo might very well be dead because of her makes Sharon's mistrust in her all the more understandable, makes Laura in turn all the more hesitant to share what happened in the hangar bay with her.

She decides to put it off, Sharon certainly has the right to know what's going on with her husband but this is neither the time, nor the place. They need to get themselves out of this mess first, all the rest will have to wait.

"I think we're about to find out," she says. She keeps a tight hold of Hera's hand as the child strains towards her mother, turns towards their captors and asks Cranach for permission first. She doesn't want the child to be caught in the crossfire an unexpected move might provoke. Cranach nods and Laura lets the child go, she experiences a moment of utter abandonment as she watches Hera take a hesitant step towards her mother, then start to run.

"Mommy," the child cries. Straightening herself, Laura turns towards Six and Baltar, unable to watch any longer as Hera hurls herself at Sharon.

Cranach and his group walk away from them a few paces to confer amongst themselves, keeping their guns trained on their captives as they start a heated discussion. Behind them, she can make out the crumbling remains of pillars and some stone steps. The flickering firelight wavers over the remnants of a wall, refracts off of the vestiges of a stained glass window in colorful patterns.

"Where is the rest of the landing party?" Laura asks her companions as she seats herself by the fire and thrusts her chilled hands towards the flames, warming them. The firelight glints off the metal fasteners of her brace.

"Sam, Galen, Leoben and the remainder of the marines and technicians are being held down there near the beach somewhere." Six says. "Those two," she motions with her chin at Liam and his co-conspirator, "along with three others, took us all by surprise, rounded us up."

There are two names conspicuously absent from that inventory. "What about Tory and D'Anna?"

"They disappeared earlier in the day, along with the Centurions."

So Tory has thrown in her lot with D'Anna? The thought saddens Laura beyond measure. "Where to?"

"Don't know, we haven't seen them at all since."

Another thought strikes her and she throws Sharon and then Six a searching glance. "How come they were able to capture all of you so easily? You're much stronger and more resilient than humans, right? I should think you would be able to overpower a few puny men, even if they are carrying guns." She's genuinely curious, has a feeling their answer may be an important part of the puzzle she's been unconsciously trying to unravel since, well, forever really.

"They knocked us out with some sort of tranquilizer," Six says. Laura sees a flicker of worry in her usually implacable face and remembers Bill telling her she now carries Saul's child. "There wasn't much we could do; they kept us tranqed up since."

"Besides, they said we'd all escape with our lives," Sharon adds, "as long as we didn't make any trouble; said they'd start shooting the others one by one if we did. We figured we'd play along for now, that the Admiral would send someone for us soon enough."

"If we'd known they were bringing you down as well, we would have…" Six begins, throwing her an almost apologetic look, but Laura shushes her.

"It's okay, you did the only sensible thing you could under the circumstances," she says. "They would have undoubtedly killed the others if you'd acted rashly, then probably you as well."

"Do you have any idea what they want?" Sharon asks. She seems to have come around to the idea that Laura isn't the one to have instigated all this, is just as much a victim as they are. She even allows Hera to grab Laura's hand and tug her closer. Laura goes willingly, smiling down at the child.

"Punishment, retribution," she says as she swivels her eyes back to their captors, the shell of a building behind them.

Suddenly, out of nowhere with a prescience almost like unto madness the truth of what they mean to do dawns on her. Her breath leaves her in an audible whoosh as her body goes rigid, caught in the grip of a truth she's caught a glimpse of earlier today, in the ruins of that temple, a truth she's glimpsed before, one she has not dared contemplate.

"What?" Six asks. "What is it?"

Laura shakes her head, caught in revelation, dangerous intuitions clamoring about her, demanding to be acknowledged. "End of line," she says, vaguely aware of her companions crowding around her, their faces aghast.

"What does that mean?" For the first time, Baltar joins the conversation. "Are they going to kill us?" He sounds scared.

"Should we make a break for it?" Sharon asks urgently.

"No," Laura says absently, too caught up in the enormity of what is about to happen.

She glances at Cranach and his people again, the edifice behind them. She can't take her eyes off of those ruins, they call to her and she feels that sense of terrible clarity, of absolute wonder and awe threatening to overtake her again. She rises to her feet just as Cranach and his group advances on their small party of five. Caleb cuts loose her fellow captives while Jane and Liam grab several burning branches from the fire, use them to light a dozen pyres set up around the structure

Laura gasps in recognition as a familiar construct is conjured from the darkness. She starts forward oblivious of the sound of guns locking and loading. She senses the others following behind her, and together she and her four companions step into the ruins to confront their hopes and dreams.


	10. Chapter 10

Bill feels the world drop out from under him at Saul's words. His knees buckle and it's all he can do to stay upright, his white knuckled grip on the horn threatens to break it in two and he has to purposely unclench his grip to relieve the strain on his aching fingers. All the while, Saul's voice echoes in his head, telling him what he doesn't want to hear, _she's gone, she's gone, she's gone, she's gone, she's gone._

He doesn't believe it, he can't believe it. He always thought he'd feel her passing, that there would be a profound difference in the world if she weren't in it, that maybe the stars would blink out one by one or more likely his own heart would stop beating as well, since she - the keeper of it - was no more. But he doesn't feel that, doesn't feel any different, he's still standing upright in the middle of CIC, still breathing, so she must be too. He clings to that, uses it to center himself and the world springs back into focus.

"Saul, tell me what's going on," he barks into the mouthpiece, "make sense man!" He almost crashes his fist into the console before him but the sight of the bandage already wrapped around his knuckles, the thought of Laura doing herself the same damage, the sight of blood and bruises adorning her fair skin, stops him.

"They took her, put her on a Raptor, the child too, they're in the flight pod."

He whirls around, shouts his command. "Seal the frakking flight pod hatch! Nothing leaves!" Secure in the knowledge his crew will obey without question, he turns his attention back to Saul, strives to modulate his tone so the rest of the crew won't hear the concern in his voice. "Is the President alright Saul?"

At the mention of her title, a ripple goes through CIC and he realizes they haven't been privy to the whole conversation, hadn't realized their President is aboard the shuttle they're currently trying to contain in the flight pod.

"She's fine," Saul assures him. "As far as I could tell, they didn't harm her."

"Good." Something in him unclenches. "What about…"

It's as far as he gets inquiring after his son's health before Gaeta's voice cuts in. "Too late, Sir," he reports. "The Raptor squeezed through." He sounds as calm and collected as ever, but sweat beads his forehead and his hands shake on his board as he adds, "Baseships are firing missiles, Sir, aiming at the President's Raptor. The Rebel Baseship is moving to intercept."

"Get us between that Raptor and those missiles," he shouts. "Dee! Get on the horn with Starbuck, tell her to take them out, keep that Raptor safe!"

As the Galactica moves to shield the lone Raptor from the missiles streaking towards it, he hears Starbuck calmly instruct her pilots to intercept, hears whoops and cheers as missiles are diverted and taken out, then screams of fear, cries of anguish as one of the Vipers is hit, then another. A tremor goes through his ship as a missile scrapes across the bow, and then a violent lurch throws him against the command board as they take a direct hit. He braces himself amidst the chaos, swerves his gaze around CIC and calls for a damage report.

"Admiral! The President's Raptor is gone from DRADIS, Sir!" Gaeta shouts over the din.

Again, his heart lurches in his chest, his breath stops. "Were they hit? Did they jump?"

"Too much interference to tell."

"Sift through it, get me an answer!"

He clings to the same principle as before. He'd know it if she were really gone from this world, wouldn't he? He would feel her absence the way Gaeta no doubt still feels his missing limb, only he wouldn't be able to go on like Gaeta does. How do you go on when what's missing is your heart?

He only starts breathing when Gaeta confirms it. "They reappeared on DRADIS, Sir. They appear to be heading for Earth."

The collective sigh of relief that goes through CIC both startles and gladdens him, but there's no time. "How about those missiles?"

"Taken out, Sir."

"Saul, what about Lee and Helo?"

"They're with Cottle now, doesn't look good."

"If anyone can help them it's him. Get back up here."

"On my way."

Caught between conflicting exigencies, for the first time in his life, Bill doesn't know what to do. His every instinct tells him to jump in a Raptor and go after Laura, but his duty to the fleet demands he stay at his post to defend what the two of them have fought so hard to rescue from the brink of extinction. Another part pulls him towards Life Station, where his son is struggling for his life. Dee's voice once again cuts through his conflicting emotions to bring him to the reality of the moment. "Sir, I have Vice President Zarek on the line, demanding to speak to the President and the Rebel Baseship is asking to speak to you."

"Tell Zarek the President is unable to come to the phone just now." The frakking weasel terrorist rat bastard would call at a time like this, wouldn't he? Always had a nose for opportunity and a propensity towards stirring up trouble; let him wait. "Put the Rebels through."

The same Six as before, by the sound of it, speaks without preamble. "Admiral, I don't know what your game is but Cavil and his party are not going to take kindly to it after they told you to stand down."

"Not my choice, believe me." Gambling on the particular importance the Sixes, Sharons and Leobens have placed on the child in the past, he adds, "Someone took President Roslin and Hera hostage, they managed to get off the ship and jumped to Earth."

"Roslin and Hera both were on that Raptor that was being fired upon?" He can hear the consternation in her voice, senses it has as much to do with Laura being on that Raptor than it has to do with Hera.

"Yes," he replies, wanting to pursue it further. He doesn't get the chance, a motion across CIC attracts his attentions and he glances over to Dee as the young communications officer gestures at him, then mouths at him that Cavil is hailing them. "Hold on, Cavil is on the other line," he tells the Six. "Stay on the horn."

"Adama!" Cavil sounds livid. "What the hell are you playing at? I'm standing on a blasted shit hole of a planet even worse than New Caprica, this cannot be Earth!"

"Not as advertised, huh?" He cannot help but feel a small surge of satisfaction at Cavil's rattled tone.

After a long moment, it's one of the Dorals who continues the conversation. "I'm glad you're having fun, Admiral. Laugh hard, it's the last time you will. This is the end of the line, once and for all, for you and your whole frakking species."

The soft click when the Doral ends their connection reverberates through him with the eerie finality of a funeral knell.

"Jump, Admiral. Get out of here," the Six urges.

"What?"

"End of line, they're going to attack. Jump and we'll hold them off as long as we can."

"We stand together," he says, taken aback by her offer.

There's a beat of silence on the other end. "Then stand together we will," she slowly responds, sounding as surprised as he feels. "Good hunting, Admiral."

Breaking the connection, he turns to his people, looks around CIC, all those familiar faces, all those hours spent here with his crew, the dangers they've faced, it all crowds around him, memories of battles fought, victory and defeat, standing here with Laura, their family surrounding when they first gained Earth and still thought they'd found their safe haven. He finds an odd kind of comfort in knowing they'll be here for the endgame.

"We've fled for our lives for four years," he says, his voice strong and full of conviction even if he doesn't feel all that convinced of a positive outcome himself; he'll lie for his crew, he'll give them hope like he's done countless times before. "We've found what we set out to find and even though it's not what we hoped, we will continue, life will find a way. Along the way, we've sacrificed much, fought many battles. This is where we stop running, this is where we win the war, this is where we prevail."

Without hesitation, they all jump to attention. "So say we all."

"Jump the fleet to the emergency coordinates, I don't want them caught in the crossfire, and get me Starbuck on the line."

He puts his hands on the console in front of him while he watches his orders being carried out. With all that's going on, with the end of all things almost upon them, still, all he can think about is Laura, down there alone and unprotected, all he can hear is her voice, telling him the war is over and they've lost, telling him they should run. _Not this time, love_, he thinks_, this time we fight._

He's given the fleet what chance he can by jumping them away, there are still a few ships with weapons to protect them, they may yet survive, but he's a realist. Despite his rousing speech, he knows the best they can hope for against odds such as these, is that he'll be able to take down what's left of the Cylon Basestars with him. He's not about to jump away with the rest of the fleet though, his people are still down there, and if he succeeds in his mission, he'll at least have bought them a fighting chance to rejoin the fleet.

Most of all though, his thoughts stray to his love, his President.

Laura Roslin is down there, Earth is down there, what hope humanity still has is down there.

"The Fleet's jumped away, Sir. Cylon Raiders are launching."

"Belay the guns until they're in battery range."

As he watches DRADIS go red as it's swarmed with squadron after squadron of Cylon Raiders, Kara's voice comes through. "Time to kick some Cylon ass, Admiral?"

"One final time, Starbuck."

"Then we better make it count."

"What do you hear, Starbuck?"

"Nothing but the rain, Sir."

He chokes on it. "Go get 'm, Starbuck," he says, unable to finish their customary banter, unable to say goodbye.

He hangs up on her, knowing he's just sent the daughter of his heart out to lead her pilots to almost certain death. He swallows back his grief, looks around CIC and sees all his people looking back at him expectantly. Behind him, he hears someone enter and knows it is Saul. He turns around and nods at him.

"Good to have you here, old friend."

"Wouldn't want to be anywhere else," he says, then moves away towards the tactical station to issue orders to his crew. "Weapons grid to full power. Stand by for enemy suppression barrage." Saul segues into battle mode as he's done countless times before, when he was still human and the Cylons were still Cylons and the lines were clearly drawn. Bill can't help but feel better knowing his friend of close to thirty years is beside him as he faces his final battle.

"Cylon fighters almost within range, closing at one-two-zero carom four-eight." Gaeta reports.

"Enemy suppression fire, all batteries execute," Bill barks.

Slowly, DRADIS is cleared of scores of the red dots indicating Cylon fighters. "Perimeter secured, Admiral."

"Launch Vipers, launch everything we've got. I want anything and everything that flies in the air."

"Vipers clear to launch." Dee repeats into her headset and Vipers swarm from the launch tubes to join Kara's CAP. Green dots square off against the red dots on DRADIS, but despite the earlier barrage, the green dots are still grossly outnumbered. "Rebel Baseship has launched fighters, they're lining up with ours.

"Signal Vipers engage fighters only, leave Basestars to us."

Starbucks voice comes over the speakers. "Let's give 'm hell people. Engage fighters, but watch for Raiders with identifiers painted on, they're friendlies." The sound of her guns is heard over the com and then she whoops, a sound almost like the old Starbuck. "That's two splattered. Now do not let them get a lock on you and stay out of Galactica's firing solution, for frak's sake, you do not want to get caught in friendly fire."

With the pilots on speaker, the gist of the battle soon becomes clear, as he knew it would. They are taking heavy casualties, beating back the Raiders but more keep streaming from the six enemy Baseships.

"Redwing, watch your six, you've got incoming." Hotdog yells and then there's a terrified scream and a deafening explosion and Kara, shouting for Hotdog to get his act together or he'll be next.

He tunes out the battle raging outside, knowing that it's out of his hands, trusting her with everything he's got, trusting her because of everything she's become.

"Target ventral turrets at Baseships," he commands, "salvo fire, hit them along the dorsal area."

Saul stands beside him, he can feel the tension coming off of him in waves, and he briefly wonders what it's like for him, siding with the humans against his own kind. When he throws a look in Saul's direction, his expression is as intent as ever, it gives nothing away. Bill is suddenly reminded of the fact Caprica is still down planet side as well, it's not just Laura in peril down below. Saul has as much of a stake in what happens on Earth as he has. Caprica and their unborn baby are down there, Tyrol and Sam and Tory, Saul's fellow final fivers are down below too. Bill shakes it off, no time for navel gazing in the midst of battle.

"We've got a direct hit, one Basestar down," Gaeta cheers. "The Rebel Baseship took another one out."

"Acquire next target, fire when ready."

"We've got incoming, they're firing nukes."

"Evasive maneuvers," Saul growls.

"Got one locked, bearing one-zero-four carom three-nine

"Brace for impact."

The nuclear strike rocks his ship violently, sets off smaller and larger explosions all throughout CIC. From out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dee being flung into the bank of monitors behind her, Gaeta smashing into his board and sliding down to the floor. They both crawl back to their seats, retake their positions as Saul makes for the damage control station.

Over the speakers he hears Hotdog scream, "Got caught in the blast, nav is down, no power, frak me!" A Raider zeros in on him and the little green dot representing his Viper disappears from DRADIS and still more fighters swarm from the remaining Baseships, Heavy Raiders following in their wake. They break through the cordon of Vipers, heading for the Galactica.

"We've lost maneuvering thrusters," Saul reports back from damage control, "took severe damage to port. Explosive decompressions all along the hull."

_That's it_, he thinks, _this is the end, can't take much more punishment before the old girl gives up the ghost. I'm sorry Laura, sorry I couldn't protect you, sorry that in the end it's me who will go first, isn't irony a bitch, huh?_

As if in response, it's suddenly almost as if he can hear her voice in his head. In her most Presidential tone, but with a soft undercurrent of the woman underneath, she's telling him it is okay, he's done all he can do, this is not the end, they'll make it through. He can feel her beside him, actually feels the heat and solidity of her body leaning into him, the soft, feels the steady weight of her hand on his arm, smells her delicate perfume, something flowery but spicy too he's never been able to identify. Her fierce presence soothes him, steadies him as he gives his final order.

"Alright, point her towards those Base ships and then get into the escape pods. It's been an honor people."

"Bill?"

"No buts, Saul. We're…"

"Something's happening."

When he swivels his gaze towards Saul, his friend's face is going through such paroxysms of joy and relief as he's never seen on that usually gruff, stoic exterior. It's as if he's conducting an entirely private inner dialogue where joy and relief are quickly followed by a catalogue of jumbled emotions Bill has a hard time classifying. There's a fierce look of vindication, and then fury, surprise, a soft look almost like love, and then stark, utter terror.

He feels it too, something is different, and something has changed.

"Admiral, are you seeing this? What the hell is going on?" Kara's voice comes over the speaker just as Saul looks up, looks him square in the face. Something glints in the depths of his one remaining eye, something deep and dark and red, it's there and gone and then it's just Saul, grabbing his shoulder, pushing him towards the exit.

'"Go! Battle's done. Get the frak down to Earth, she needs you."


	11. Chapter 11

As soon as Laura and her Companions step into the ruins, the Opera House of her dreams springs to life around her, the one on Caprica she visited so many times in the past, the one on Kobol, only known to her from the scriptures, the one on Earth, the ruins of which they're standing in right now. They all overlap and before her eyes, an amalgamation of the three is erected around her, a kaleidoscopic, constantly shifting image of an Opera House made up of the sum of all those variegated parts.

She turns in a slow circle as she surveys their surroundings. Colors bend into each other, the latticework shifts and undulates; ornate carvings along the upper balustrade resemble writhing snakes one moment, then look like leaves waving on a gentle breeze the next, paintings and rugs blink in and out of existence and every now and then the reality of the ruins surrounding them reasserts itself.

The many different versions of the same structure, warring for right of way.

It's disconcerting, makes the queasiness in her stomach that's been with her all day ratchet up another notch but she plants her feet squarely on the floor and looks through the shifting outer trappings to the structure underneath, recognizes the grammar of the architecture. A wide, circular lobby, pillars, a sweeping staircase, balconies and an ornate door, inscribed with arcane symbols leading to the concert hall, a vaulted ceiling, buttresses and arches. Slowly the whirlwind of sights and colors coalesces into a unified vision as she identifies and catalogues the parts that make up the whole and Laura finds herself opposite the grand entrance to the inner sanctum, the auditorium.

From out of the corner of her eye, she catches a glimpse of a figure rushing along the balcony towards the grand staircase leading down into the lobby, where they are now standing. A familiar figure, auburn hair shockingly straight but luscious as it should be, dressed in a blue suit that certainly had never been part of her wardrobe, even when her wardrobe consisted of more than three suits and half a dozen shirts. When she turns towards the fleeting figure that is her and yet not her, it disappears, dissolves before her eyes. A glance at her companions tells her they are caught up in their own version of the vision she herself is seeing, all but Baltar, who is looking about him with an air of distaste. Behind them, their captors have taken up position, guns at the ready to prevent any attempt at escape.

Laura faces forward, steps towards the double doors and they open before her and again her companions follow, as if in a trance, Cranach and his party close on their heels. She slowly moves towards the middle of the auditorium, down the tiers upon tiers of seats. They're upholstered in red, like in any other theater she's ever been to, and somehow, that's a comfort. Halfway between the entrance and the podium, she stops abruptly, turns on her heels and expectantly sweeps her gaze upwards towards the balcony above, as in her dream.

There's nothing there.

"Oh." The small exclamation doesn't even sound like her, her voice is lost, along with the last of her stamina. She almost sags to her knees, her sense of anticipation so great that with the letdown, all the many disappointments, all the difficulties of this day, come crashing down on her. And still, it's not over, she knows there's worse to face.

Strong hands catch her, Caprica to her right, smiling her enigmatic smile, Baltar, of all people, to her left, actually looking worried. They keep her upright until she's ready to stand on her own two feet again and the fact that it's Baltar helping her is enough to bring her back to herself where, she's sure, nothing short of Bill, striding in - like a slightly tarnished knight in a flight suit - with guns blazing, would have been.

As she straightens up, Baltar surprises her further by whirling on their captors. "What pray tell is going on here? What's the purpose of this charade?" His overly polite tone, the trace of mockery in his cultured voice, does nothing but infuriate their captors more.

"Silence!" Cranach bellows as he steps up to Baltar, puts a gun to his head. "You'll know soon enough. Now on your knees, all of you."

As they all sink to the ground, Laura sees Caprica and Sharon exchange a glance, clearly they are calculating the odds of overwhelming their captors before they're all blown to smithereens, but it's them, barehanded, against five guns, one of which is currently pressed against Hera's temple as Cranach grabs the little girl and drags her from her mother's arms.

"I demand you tell us what is going on," Baltar continues, seemingly unaware of how his every word serves to antagonize their captors further.

"Shut the frak up!" Caleb shouts, raising his gun to strike Baltar down. A look from Cranach has him lowering his arm. He steps back with a snarl.

"Stay still, Gaius," Laura says, finding her voice again. Something's coming, she can feel it approaching, the air is charged, crackling with electricity. Everything she's done, everything she's neglected to do, every choice she's made since the worlds first ended, every agonizing decision she's had to make, every act, both selfish and selfless, it's all led her here, this is where it's all going to be decided, end of line. The Gods she's so recently started to question. The scriptures she's so diligently followed which led them to this wasteland. Her own fate, which she's simultaneously embraced, for her death would mean the survival of the human race, and railed against since it would take her away from the one constant in this whole mess, Bill Adama, her Admiral, her love; everything is coming to a head, something is happening and it's going to decide her fate and in that recognition, there's hope and a kind of peace.

"Yes Gaius," Cranach sneers as he pushes Hera towards Jane and approaches Laura. "Stay still and bear witness. This is the hour the Prophet redeems herself, this is where the Dying Leader fulfills her destiny, this is how the human race reclaims the road towards the Promised Land."

"What the frak is that supposed to mean?" Sharon interrupts, glaring at their captors. Laura can see growing realization written large all over her face, can see her fighting an inner battle, concern for her child warring with the need to stop what's happening. She moves to catch the young pilot's eyes and shakes her head no, once, very clearly.

"Just that" Cranach says as he reaches into his pocket. "It's simple, really. This may be Earth but the Dying Leader still lives, which means Earth is not the Promised Land. The Prophet was led astray; we simply brought you all down here to rectify that. _The Dying Leader shall know the truth of the Opera House_, isn't that how it goes? We're thinking that truth shall lead us where we're supposed to go. You're all here because you're part of her visions, this place," he gestured around him with one hand while the other extracts something from his pocket, "is part of them too, what better way to induce another vision than this, right here, with all of you in attendance."

"How do you know all that?" Caprica asks softly. "How do you know about the Opera House? Laura glances her way and sees her cool bleu gaze is firmly fixed on Baltar; she seems to be waiting for something.

"We have people in all reaches of the fleet," Cranach says. He is holding a vial of amber liquid in his hand that Laura recognizes all too well. She shudders but then that strange sense of peace reasserts itself. The answers to all of her questions, al her doubts and uncertainties, all her hopes and fears, may well be here. "We have people in CIC," Cranach continues, gesturing towards Jane. "They heard of this place first, passed on the news. We have people in the military, the deck crew, you name it. Even amongst your flock." He points at Baltar with a frown of distaste. "You should be less loose lipped with your Nymphs, telling them about the reasons and outcome of your trip to the Basestar, the Dying Leader and the Opera House; not done."

He's on a roll now, apparently, but more than that, Laura thinks that maybe he feels the need to justify his actions, or maybe he's just talking himself into taking the next step. "We've been unhappy with our leadership for some time," he continues. "We've felt the Prophet was no longer on the path of righteousness. We've known the discontent among the people of the fleet, shared it. They're angry Cylons are living among them, angry about poor living conditions, long working hours, we've been ready to rebel and as soon as the news of Earth reached us this morning, we knew this was our chance to remedy all the wrongs that have been heaped upon us, there was no other choice but to act." He falls silent, produces a syringe and fills it with the liquid in the vial and starts towards Laura.

"What are you doing? Stop it, right now!" Sharon shouts, starting forward until a burly arm is thrown about her neck. She struggles but goes limp when a gun is pressed against her temple, even as across from her, Jane points her own gun towards Hera.

"Chamalla," Baltar says. There's a complex mix of emotions in the man's voice that draws Laura's gaze away from the syringe and towards him. "You're going to load her up with Chamalla in hopes it will induce a vision of the Promised Land. Never mind that the dosage in that vial is easily five times the prescribed dosage and will probably kill her." He sounds disgusted, looks livid. It's something she's never seen or heard from him, this concern for another human being besides himself. "Never mind that the woman sacrificed her health, twice, for you malcontents. Never mind that _even I_ can't count the number of times she's saved all of our collective asses, and I'm a certified genius, for frak's sake! Let's not mention that she's put in 18 hour days herself, every day, for four years and doesn't even have the luxury of a decent rack but sleeps on a fold out cot instead.

"Never mind all that, you are unhappy, the fleet is discontent, obviously she is to blame, and obviously, as soon as the Dying Leader is dead, all will magically be well again. Oh, and if she gives you the location of the Promised Land with her _dying_ breath, well, that just makes the prophecies all the more relevant, right?

"And then what? You'll kill these two, me as well, the kid? Blood sacrifice, that's always good to appease the Gods, right? And if you blame it on the Cylons, the alliance will be broken, the human race will once again be pure and untainted, the way the Gods meant for it to be? Am I close?" With a growl, Caleb steps forward, pistol whips him and when his head comes back up again there's a bleeding gash on his cheek. It looks painful and Laura is certain that now, surely, he'll back down but he continues as if nothing happened. It's as if he's trying to divert their attention away towards himself, for some reason. The realization that he is indeed trying to do just that dumbfounds Laura for a moment. He always did like the limelight but any threat of danger towards his own person usually has him scampering off with his tail between his legs, not so this time, it's baffling.

"It's all a load of bollocks. The Gods do not want this. The Gods, if they ever existed at all, abandoned humanity eons ago. There are no Gods. I'm frankly not sure there's a God." He turns towards Caprica, a look of apology on his face. "What I do know is that there's you and me and her and them." He gestures at himself, Cranach, Laura and the rest of their companions. "There's us, people, and we have a choice. You can choose not to do this; you can choose to find another way."

Laura looks towards her sworn enemy, the man she's held responsible for the destruction of the Colonies, and so many other crimes since and in him, this flawed creature of self serving ambition and debilitating weaknesses, she sees the answer to the question Bill posed so long ago. _Why are we as a people worth saving?_

It is because of this, because people can - and will - rise above themselves, become more than what they are. If Baltar, the self obsessed, egomaniacal narcissist can rise above himself, can step up with no regard for his own well being and defend the life of his worst enemy, what might any one of them become?

She sees the same realization rise like the dawning of hope on Caprica's face, she shines with it and Laura has to turn away from her or else be blinded by her radiance as Caprica looks at Baltar as if he has at last banished all of her doubts.

Cranach looks back and forth between them, seeming to mull over Baltar's words and Laura actually thinks, just for a minute, that maybe he'll back down. Her calm evaporated the moment Baltar identified the contents of the vial. Five times the dosage, where three times the dosage had nearly put her in a coma once. She's known it would come to this one way or another from the moment they set foot in this place, maybe even earlier, that moment in the Temple earlier today comes to mind and then a whirlwind of images stretching backwards in time to when Elosha first told her of the Dying Leader that would lead humanity to their new home but would not live to enter the promised land. She's known it would come to this but being confronted with the stark reality of it makes her quail inside. Yet for maybe the first time too, she fully accepts it.

It's so clear to her now, what she is, what she has to do but she's afraid; afraid to face it, afraid of going the final distance, afraid not to. But there's really no other choice. She straightens her back, stares them all down over the top of her glasses.

She recognizes now, that it was never going to be any other way, despite what Baltar just said about choices. Sometimes, they are all stripped away until what's left is the only choice that matters, the only choice that makes sense.

"If I do this, you let them go," she says, donning the mantel of the Dying Leader but not letting go of her Presidential armour underneath; she has, after all, earned the right to be both. The command in her tone makes Cranach take a step backwards. He regards her for a long moment, hesitation in his eyes.

"Frak this!" Impatiently, unfettered by doubt, Caleb starts forward and snatches the syringe from Cranach's hand, plunges it into Laura's shoulder. The feeling of the needle violently burrowing through her flesh, scraping across her collarbone, is nauseating but nothing compared to the burn as the Chamalla enters her system. Her nerves catch on fire; it's as if her blood is boiling in her veins. The persistent nausea that's been with her all day reaches the breaking point but when she doubles over and starts to retch, nothing comes up but bile.

She falls forward, stomach in convulsions, pushes her arms out to break her fall and agony explodes in her injured hand as it buckles under her weight. She can feel the stitches tear and blood begins to flow from the bullet graze, it saturates the bandage, lands with a tiny splash on Earth's dusty surface. Pressure mounts in her like a tidal wave, swells in her head and her heart until it explodes and she is flung outside her body, goes tumbling head over feet into the black abyss of space. She flails, lost against the heavens, Earth, her companions, her failing body, all left behind. She exists in nothingness for a moment that stretches like eternity. There's neither sight nor sound, there's only silence and the ever present void of space, pressing down on her. It scares her, this state of non-being, enough to make her scream but she has no voice, she has no words. Sheer dread overwhelms her and she struggles to stop her mad tumble, struggles to regain her senses.

By sheer force of will alone, she calls a halt to her growing panic and watches the universe right itself.

She's floating now and one by one, like a river of light urging her onwards, the stars blink into existence, until they fill her vision like joy or madness. She knows, them, oh how she knows them. There's her father and her sisters, dimly remembered though not less loved, her mother, proud and strong, the particularly bright one, straight ahead, is her beloved Billy. They're the souls of the dead, waiting to begin the cycle anew. She's filled with a sense of profound gladness, of rightness, as they swirl about her, leading the way. There's sadness too, when she recognized Bryn and Helo, but it's muted. They are so beautiful, all of them, strong and vibrant and bright and full of love. Despite what she will have to leave behind, it will not be such a terrible punishment to go out among them. The urge to do just that, to let go of it all and be with them, to join them, is so great, it's appalling. It may well be the hardest thing she's ever done but she resists their pull, there's still her purpose to fulfill, there are still needs to be met.

Laura wrenches herself back and suddenly, while she's still reeling, she feels a mind brush up against hers, alien, yet familiar. It's a tentative, fractured touch, but she recognizes it and latches on to it.

"Are you alive?" Her whisper is a cry that rings out against the dark, bounces around between the stars burning like truth against the canopy of the heavens; it burns away her fears in the negative space between doubt and certainty where hope resides.

"Welcome back, little sister." The Hybrid sings her delight, crows her victory and suddenly, shockingly, she's back on Earth, back in her own body, weak, exhausted and in pain, the Chamalla burning like vitriol in her veins.

Her companions crowd around her, as she gasps and almost chokes on the abrupt transition, their urgent hands are on her back, their concern is palpable. She's still on her knees, bracing herself on her left hand, the injured right one cradled against her stomach. Blood continues to seep through the bandage - _a cost in blood,_ she thinks - there's a small pool of it already on the floor and she wonders how long she's been gone.

Laura sits back on her haunches throws her head back to face the heavens and draws in a huge, shuddering breath. The four at her back step away to allow her some room. Touch is replaced by sound and it takes her a moment to realize it's Hera, talking to her, calling her name. She turns her face towards the little girl, her vision is still streaked by starlight; her human voice fails her, so she just smiles at the child.

"Lau-la," Hera says. Her small hand comes to rest on Laura's cheek like a benediction. "Did you see?"

Mutely, she nods. She can feel the child, actually _feel_ her, not just the hand on her cheek; she can feel the life and blood reality in her, the strange and wondrous alloy of human and Cylon within, the blood in her veins, the breath in her lungs.

It's as if with that touch, that realization, the floodgates open.

She can suddenly feel the three adults behind her, feel their emotions; Sharon's confusion, and Caprica's elation. She feels Baltar, his sense of overweening pride in himself, and thinks he still has a long way to go. She even feels the child in Caprica's womb, the whisper music of its tiny heartbeat.

Her mind stretches further, her senses expand and she can feel their captors, too, Cranach's doubt, Caleb's eager anticipation, Jane's confusion, Liam's shame.

Further down the hill, their accomplices are watching over the rest of the landing party. They're all anxious; one of them has his finger on the trigger and is contemplating just shooting their captives to be done with it. One of Gaeta's tech heads whimpers and Laura whispers words of comfort at him. He doesn't react but Tyrol and Sam look up in wonder as though they've sensed her somehow.

Among the ruins of the shop district, near the ice cream parlor, she finds Racetrack and another pilot she doesn't know, along with their ECO's, carefully moving towards the lights of the bonfires surrounding her own party. She tries to find a way to redirect them towards Tyrol and Sam, when suddenly her attention is drawn sideways, towards the base of the hill, the entrance to the park they briefly rested at.

There, her mind almost fails her as it encounters a consciousness so alien and unknowable it scrambles all of her senses. It takes her breath away, paralyzes her, it's cold and hard and impenetrable in its strangeness but then she senses D'Anna and Tory close by and by virtue of association alone she recognizes the alien consciousness.

Cylon Centurions.

Suddenly the strange conduits and pathways make sense, but there's no time to marvel at the complexity of these machines. D'Anna and her entourage are almost upon them. She can sense Tory's profound confusion, the hurt and disappointment and fright that led her to take side with the Cylons; she can feel D'Anna, feel her rage. The former journalist feels betrayed, her anger burns bright and if left unchecked will annihilate everything within its path. Caprica and Sharon, her fellow Cylons, Baltar, her onetime lover, Hera, the child she once coveted, Laura, her longtime enemy turned uneasy ally and the rest of the humans with them.

Underneath the anger, Laura feels D'Anna fear. She's afraid that the truth of who the final Cylon is will be revealed, and that is not an outcome she desires and will do anything to stop. The knowledge of who the Fifth is belongs to her and she will not stand idly by and allow anyone access to that secret. Strangely, Laura can read her every thought, know her every emotion, yet this one piece of knowledge remains locked away, she's unable to dig it out, however furiously she tries. It comes to her only then, like a sudden sunrise, that all she has to do is allow herself to drift in dreams and the vision of the Opera House will lead her to the secret. She was so close before, in Cottle's Sickbay and she instinctively knows she's certainly capable of going that last distance in this strangely altered state of consciousness. She knows too, that that's what D'Anna is afraid of.

Before she can even try though, Laura convulses with the force of Tory's fright, hears D'Anna command the Centurions to _mow them all down_. Swiftly, the Centurions march towards the top of the hill, D'Anna and Tory at their heels.

"No!" Laura screams. She's paralyzed with fear for a moment and then shakes it off and flings herself down neural pathways, breakers and relays and circuit boards, trying to stop the Centurions, trying to avoid the slaughter that's to come.

Startled by the intrusion, they fight her, rip at her consciousness; it hurts, this psychic attack, more that the broken bones in her hand and the burn of the Chamalla even. It flays her bare but she persists and she learns them, learns they have already been released from their neural inhibitors, that they posses free will, of a sort. But no one ever bothered to explain to them the great gift they have been given. Free will is nothing without context, without the knowledge of what it means, and she's a teacher, after all. She teaches them and they learn and in the space between one heartbeat and the next, they are hers, these complex machines; they pledge their allegiance to her. They are not so unknowable after all and she's spent years educating and charming and cajoling and sometimes threatening people into doing her will, this is ultimately no different, it's just a matter of knowing which feathers to stroke, which buttons to push, when to take and mostly when to give.

The Centurions already have their weapons out, but at her command, their guns flip back and they arrange themselves in a circle around D'Anna and Tory. It would be so easy to crush them, let the Centurions do her dirty work for her and wipe the two of them from the face of the Earth, punish them for their betrayals. Instead, she instructs the Centurions to remain on guard, to not threaten or harm them but to restrain them when they try to break free. D'Anna screams her rage, rails against her metal prison; Tory simply cowers on the ground, her mind a whirlwind of shame and confusion. When Laura places a soft touch like a blessing on her face her former aide looks up and breathes her name, a look like hope ghosting over her face.

When she next feels Cavil and Doral and their Centurions on the beach, she knows what to do and does not hesitate. It takes longer, these Centurions have not had their neural inhibitors removed, they attack her even more ferociously than their brothers, the violence of their assault excruciates her, almost steals her resolve but she doggedly pursues her goal, frees them, appeals to them and in the end, she wins out. Exhausted, she has them restrain the humanoid models and they obey without question.

The irony of these beings, having been grated free will and turning around and pledging it to her cause, is not lost on her but before she can hope to correct them, the Hybrid is there again, smiling her approval. Her joy is like the sun exploding in Laura's head and then she's out in space again and there, finally, she finds what her heart desires most.

Bill.

He's in CIC, surrounded by Saul, Dualla and Gaeta; a host of other souls, Lee and Cottle in Sickbay, Jarez, standing just outside the morgue, all the people that make up his crew, shine like pinpricks of light around his bright flame. He yet stands strong but the flame flickers, the battle has taken its toll; the extravagant slaughter of his people weighs him down. Laura feels it too, watches Redwing and Hotdog join the river of stars. The space between Galactica and the enemy Baseships is strewn with debris, the flaming husks of Vipers and Raiders alike.

The stars still bright and strong, mourn.

Amidst the devastation, Kara in her Viper fights a losing battle, Bill knows it, grieves the fact that he had to send his surrogate daughter out amongst the enemy to die.

He is weary and almost at the end of his rope and so very dear to her. Laura weeps for him, whispers words of love and comfort to him and wraps her essence around him, pours her love for him into stoking his flame and watches it burn bright once more.

For a moment, she fears it's all she can do. Far removed, she can feel the toll all of these different stresses are putting on her own already ravaged physique, can feel her labored breathing, her fading heartbeat. The Opera House starts to flicker into existence around her, the pull of her failing body drawing her away.

Before she can succumb to her weakness, the Hybrid is there again, "Not yet, Little Sister," she whispers. "There's still work to be done."

"Let's do it, then," she responds.

As she speaks, Saul's head jerks around almost as if he heard her. He looks around, his one eye wild with wonder and hope, and she whispers a command to him, watches for a moment as recognition and rage and finally acknowledgement flicker across his dour face. As she flings herself out into the midst of the battle his thoughts turns towards stark terror when their connection remains open for a second as she draws power from his Cylon strength and he in turn feels her anguish as her ethereal body is buffeted by shockwaves and explosions, pummeled by debris.

She opens herself up to it, the utter devastation of the battle raging around her. She can feel Kara, desperate in her Viper, _you will lead them all to their end, you are the Harbinger of Death, Kara Thrace_, the refrain bounces around in Kara's head, ceaselessly, while she leads the last of her pilots in a losing battle against a seemingly endless stream of Cylon raiders. Her pilots are no less desperate, one of them so scared he's wet himself, another offering prayers to the Gods as he sits in his Viper with the nav gone while wind whistles into the cockpit through a crack in the canopy.

With everything she is, with everything she's become, she stands against destruction and takes it all into herself, all of their fear and despair, their strength and bravery, uses it to fuel her and when her mind meets the four remaining Hybrids, and they rail against her, she uses it, Bill's love, Saul's steadfast acknowledgement, Kara's desperation, every sacrifice made, everything she's learned, her own resolve, her ardent need, to bend them to her will.

They fight her, almost rend her spirit from her corporeal body. They are strong, but they too, like the Centurions have been enslaved, and she uses that knowledge. Some of them have been for decades, tied to the ships they power through no act of will of their own. Their hard won sovereignty over the workings of their ships their only comfort. Powerful, but slaves none the less; the very crime the Cylon Humanoids have accused humanity off, perpetrated against their kin. Instead of fighting them, she comforts them, takes their pain as her own. For a moment, they fight even harder, she can feel the connection that ties her to her physical body tear but she draws power from their wrath, draws strength from their anger and pain and stands strong and endures and finally feels them give in, the force of their rage the intensity of their grief utterly spent.

In that moment all the myriad paths that lead them here converge on her in a powerful desire to exact retribution. She's learned from the Hybrids during their battle, she knows how with a touch of her mind, she could crumple the raiders like tinfoil, destroy the Basestars and she almost gives in. It is her chance to exact revenge for the horrors suffered by her people, _her_ people, these past years. The holocaust that left just a handful of them stranded in space, the unrelenting chase across the heavens that decimated their numbers further, the torture and terror they experienced on new Caprica.

Laura pulls herself back from the brink, tells the Hybrids to stand down instead, to recall their Raiders With the Hybrids and Raiders under her control, the humanoid models are no longer a threat and, content in the knowledge the fleet is safe, she lets go, plummets back down to Earth, back down towards her own frail body, continues to fall as her body crumples to the floor, her strength utterly gone.


	12. Chapter 12

She doesn't even feel her body crash to the ground in utter exhaustion, is only dimly aware of the confusion and fear of her companions as they attempt to still her tremors. They have no idea what just happened, only saw her writhing in agony on the floor and she has no strength left to communicate with them. She is too drained, too weary to even shift away from the bloody puddle she lands in as she plunges from her trip among the stars straight into an all too familiar dreamscape.

This time, she sees herself not in her blue suit but in the pantsuit she is wearing right now, straight black wig in place, her glasses planted firmly on the bridge of her nose. The others are there too, all dressed as they are, down to their military fatigues and the cuts and bruises adorning their faces. They rush down the stairs, Sharon and herself, and move to join Caprica and Baltar even as Caprica bends over and picks up Hera, places the little girl in Baltar's arms. Together they step forward, the five of them, through the double doors into the concert hall. Halfway down the steps they turn in unison and this time she sees and is not surprised at what she finds.

The truth of the Opera House, finally revealed; and of course, it's a truth that has been staring her in the face all along.

She is not so shocked, not as upset as she would have been. Her sojourn amid the stars prepared her for what she sees, their long trek across the heavens was just a precursor to this, if not for everything that happened, she would never have been able to accept it, but accept it she does; it's not as if she has a choice, really.

This, too, seems to be her fate, her destiny.

Far off, she hears D'Anna scream. "No!" She can feel Saul and Galen and Sam and Tory, smile their welcome.

She doesn't flinch when she casts her gaze upwards towards the five figures on the balcony and finds her own face staring back at her.

She looks much like she did before the cancer came back and staked its claim on her the second time, strong and healthy, vibrant and alive, figure curvaceous in all the right places, as it should be, long hair cascading down her back. Even though the truth of what she is is looking her right in the face, she's still human enough to feel a twinge of envy and regret for that lost treasure. It quickly fades as she gazes upon Tory, Saul, Sam and Galen, all limned in light and her between them, towering over them. She's magnificent, standing tall and proud, resplendent in white, light eddying from her limbs, streaming from her fingers, shining from her eyes; so beautiful, though she would never have said that of herself in any other context.

Strange, how she can stand there and look upon herself and see the face of the enemy and not feel any different. She's imagined this possibility in her darker moments, dreamt of it sometimes, and always there had been a profound shift, a sickening jolt as the Universe tilted on its axis, a moment as violent as a heart attack, where realization hits her just before her programming kicks in and she loses all sense of herself.

She thinks she should feel different like that, but she doesn't.

Of the four behind her, only Hera appears to see what she sees, she giggles happily in Baltar's arms. Caprica and Sharon look at the other four, recognition in their eyes, but the moment they set their sight on the figure in the middle, their gaze becomes dazed and confused. Baltar doesn't even look at the Five. Laura senses he's scared to see himself there, scared not to. Instead, he throws her an anxious look. "What is it?" he asks, "what do you see? Is it me? Am I the Final One?"

She shakes her head, takes a step closer to the Five on the balcony, another step and suddenly she's up there with them. Sam and Galen touch her right shoulder, Tory and Saul her left. Their touch is infinitely soft, filled with love. The figure in front of her, the one that's her and yet not her, reaches out. Her smile is beatific, her entire figure streams and swirls as light flows around her in an endless pattern. When her palm touches Laura's forehead, when those luminous fingers brush her eyelids closed, knowledge explodes like truth in her head and she knows, she knows, and it is agony and it is ecstasy.

With the touch of her own hand illuminating her mind, past and future are unlocked, attacking her in a whirlwind of fractured sounds and images too jumbled to make sense off and Laura can do nothing but scream with it and her scream contains the very paradox of her existence as it rises to the rafters, sweeps up to scour the heavens, shatter the very fabric of life.

Like a film unspooling in her head, the images coalesce and she sees how humanity lived peacefully on Kobol, having run from devastating conflict, they had made it their new home, as they had done countless times before, stretching back in time to the very creation of the Universe, when they first dragged themselves from the primordial ooze and taught themselves to walk upright. No Gods had dreamt them up, no God had had a hand in creating them, only a big bang, uncaring eons of evolution and happenstance and then, suddenly, people; loving and hating and procreating, fighting amongst themselves, creating music, art, building a society, making war, creating destruction.

There were no Gods, no God, just people, some good, some bad, some indifferent; and some like unto Gods, rising above themselves and setting a shining example, or doing terrible wrongs.

As they had done countless times before, on scores of planets, mankind thrived on Kobol, until, arrogant in their own supremacy, they sought to create life in their own image, and in doing so created the First and Final Five.

It is with no surprise whatsoever that she recognizes the scientist who created them.

Gaius Baltar.

Angry beyond the telling of it, Laura whirls around, points an accusing finger at the scientist standing behind her, the thorn in her side. "It was him?" she asks incredulously, furiously as Baltar takes an uncertain step backwards, cringes under the force of her wrath.

Her revenant just smiles, unruffled by Laura's ardent glare. _"No, one of his forefathers. He sought to create perfection when he created us. First Saul, then Galen and Sam and Tory. He infused them with knowledge and strength and free will, made them healthier, more intelligent, stronger and faster than their human counterparts._

"_As part of an experiment, he let the Four out into the world and they lived and breathed among the humans without humanity ever being aware they moved among them. Each time they died, their consciousness, their essential make up, was resurrected in a newborn body, not the fully grown, ageless bodies the Seven favored before you blew the Hub. They instead were raised by human parents, grew old, died and lived again, indistinguishable from humans."_

Saul speaks up for the first time, his voice full of bile and rage, but with an undercurrent of compassion like she's never heard before. "_But somewhere he frakked up. The cycle of being born, living then dying of old age, without threat or challenge, made us weak, weaker than we should have been, and so frakking Baltar's progenitor went back to the drawing board and in his final act of genius - or madness - he created you, the Final One, and when he did, he placed a fatal flaw in you; your cancer."_

And Laura sees her past lives. Sees how sometimes she lived to grow old, without the cancer rearing its ugly head, how sometimes her life was cut short, the cancer taking her after a short, brutal fight, how at other times she'd had to fight a long, agonizing battle, like now, before succumbing to the ravages of the disease. And sometimes, sometimes, the cancer was vanquished, disappeared altogether.

Her revenant speaks, her face lit from within by a surety Laura envies and a joyfulness she doesn't understand. _"This is the paradox. The cancer in you is the flaw that makes you perfect."_

The realization that the thing that has threatened her existence – that has eaten away at her soul as it ravaged her body - was a conscious act, that it was given to her, almost makes her choke with the horror of it. "You speak of the Cancer as though it were a gift," Laura spits out; enraged she turns away from the five luminous figures before her.

A hand on her arm stays her. It's a perfect duplicate of her own, down to the tracery of veins on the back and the small scar at the base of her thumb from when she cut it chopping vegetables in the kitchen back in her apartment on Caprica years ago.

"_It is not."_ The voice too is a perfect copy of her own. _"But _life_ is a gift. A gift which cannot be appreciated to its fullest extent until that life is threatened. Just as there is no good without evil, no joy without sorrow, no pleasure without pain, there is no life without the uncertainty of death. The flaw at your center made you perfect."_

Tory speaks then, her face, her very posture harkens back to the young woman who stepped up to take Billy's place right after he died, cocky, no nonsense Tory. Despite her own turmoil, Laura grieves for the woman she became.

"_We Five lived among the humans,"_ Tory says, _"taking spouses, mingling among them, creating a Thirteenth Tribe. But in time and against our will, we became like Gods in the eyes of our people. The Thirteenth Tribe separated itself from the Twelve, flourished, became ever more powerful. Fearful their sovereignty would be challenged, humanity sought to destroy that which they had created. As before, they were brought to the brink of extinction by their own folly. Kobol having been decimated in the battle, humanity fled to the stars, settling on the Twelve Colonies, while we, the Thirteenth Tribe, wandered the universe until we found Earth."_

She stops there, steps back and hangs her head in defeat.

"What happened here?" Laura commands, even though she's already seen glimpses of it in the jumble of images trying to sort itself out in her head. "Tell me!"

Her revenant cocks her head, appraising her, a gesture so reminiscent of her own mannerisms it makes Laura's head spin. _"There we settled and while our offspring thrived and multiplied upon the Earth, we Five remained apart, content to watch over our progeny from afar, parents letting go of their young as they must, happy to see them prosper. The Thirteenth Tribe lived in harmony for centuries while we watched, wanting nothing more than for our children to forget their conflicted origins - forget us - and just be, in peace. And just when our long vigilance had been rewarded, when the Five had all but been forgotten and the knowledge of who we were had slipped into folklore and myth, something came crashing down to earth from the heavens to change all that."_

Caught in the grip of perilous truths and staggering intuitions, Laura sees the trail of fire across the heavens as Starbuck comes hurtling down to Earth at breakneck speed. "Kara Thrace in her Viper," she says.

Sam nods solemnly and takes up the narrative, his face scrunched into a wistful frown as he speaks about his wife. _"She arrived through a wormhole, from her present to ours, and her arrival caused dissent among the Thirteenth Tribe. Even as Galen rebuilt her Viper and we arranged for her to rejoin the fleet, political and religious strife divided the planet. Some saw Kara as the harbinger of the apocalypse; others saw her as a beacon of hope, an Angel sent by the Gods, a messenger of the one God. Before long, war broke out between the various factions and Earth was reduced to a nuclear wasteland and what was left of the Thirteenth Tribe once again took to the heavens; following directions pieced together from our own travels so many centuries ago, they set out to find a new home."_

"Why didn't you go with them?" The use of the second person plural is deliberate, even with all that's been revealed to her, she is not yet prepared to claim her place amongst them, might never be. Even though she accepts what she is, she doesn't feel any different, she still feels human.

Though she'd directed her question at her own revenant, it's Galen who answers. He steps forward, the sadness he carries with him wherever he goes bleeds through in his voice but his face is clear and strong. _"We Five decided to stay behind, fearful that the conflict Kara described between the fleet and our Cylon cousins who so relentlessly pursued them, would follow the Thirteenth Tribe to their new refuge and destroy what was left of our progeny._

"_We determined instead that we would search out our erstwhile brothers and attempt to change things. We arrived on Caprica some eight years before the first Cylon war. On the Twelve Colonies too, history was about to repeat itself, the first step towards creating life had been taken, in the form of the Cylon Centurions, and they were about to rebel. A war was fought and narrowly won by the humans and all we could do was watch the Cylon Centurions take to the stars in defeat, knowing that they would return in humanoid form to wreak even more havoc."_

Laura sees it all pay out just as Galen described, can feel the conflicting needs that had pulled the Five of them in different directions. They felt for the enslaved Centurions and the Seven that were to come, their cousins, understood their thirst for revenge, but they could not condone what they were about to do. Meanwhile, their life on the Colonies meant a re-immersion in human society, that which they sprang from. After centuries of aloofness they reveled in it, the simple pleasures of life, even as their hearts bled with the knowledge of what was to come. None more so than Laura's, who knew the pain of a life cut short, who'd seen her own past and future reflected in the fate of her human mother. Yet, in the end, their loyalty was to their own tribe and they positioned themselves so that they would be able to prevent the two warring factions from reaching Earth while their war still raged. At the same time, they would fight to prevent from happening that which their cousins desired most, the annihilation of the human race.

They tried unsuccessfully to convince Colonial Society of the danger they were in. That having failed, they watched and they waited, aware of their own strengths and limitations; they knew they would never be able to take on the entire Cylon army. Instead, when the attack was imminent, they were strategically placed to preserve humanity and in order to avoid giving themselves away, they switched themselves off, gave themselves over to their human identities.

And now here they all were at the culmination of that journey, the moment of truth

_"Are you ready?"_ her revenant asks, her voice swirling like a melody between them.

"Yes," Laura breathes. "Yes I am." Her voice is sure even though she feels her body, utterly drained can feel herself fading. She stands before her own avatar on the balcony of the Opera House of her dreams, while her physical self lies curled on its side on the cold, stone floor of the ruins the Opera House became. She can feel the blood drip from her hand to the floor beneath her, can hear the tiny splash as it splatters on the ground, even as she stands here, tall and upright; the dichotomy is making her dizzy. "Tell me who I am."

_"You know who you are, you know what you are."_

And she does, she has already accepted it. "Cylon. I'm the last."

_"The Last and the First, but that is not all that you are."_

"The Dying Leader?"

_"Ah yes, that too."_

Unsure if she can bear to ask further questions and have her worst suspicions confirmed, she asks anyway. "What else?"

_"You know, deep within yourself, you've always known."_

A cluster of images comes to the forefront, arises out of the swirling jumble in her head, but she can't quite grasp their meaning, or maybe she doesn't dare to. It's strange, how she can still be afraid of certain truths even with everything that's been revealed to her. "I can't," she all but pleads. "It's too much… I need you to tell me."

_"You led the Five to the Colonies but died before you reached the new homeland of the Twelve Tribes. You woke again in a new body, a human body, born into the Roslin family. Think, Laura."_ And she remembers. She remembers how the Five of them arrived on Caprica, Saul, a strapping young lad, was quickly drafted into the service. Tory, Sam and Galen, frail in their old age, set out to build a resurrection facility, but it was already too late for her. Before they reached Caprica, she died, and with no vessel of their own making, out of necessity and need, she took the next step in their evolution and somehow found a way to resurrect in the body of a human baby, poured her essence into the empty vessel as it waited to be born, as it waited for a soul to reincarnate in her.

She almost staggers to her knees then, the weight of what she did, what she became, almost too great to bear. "I pirated this body? Assumed this form when some other soul, waiting among the stars, should by rights have inhabited it?"

"_Maybe. But then again, maybe this vessel was waiting for you to inhabit it."_

She shies away from it, it's too much to comprehend, too much to contemplate, the moral and philosophical implications larger than she can deal with right now, when she's on the brink of learning her true purpose. Moving on to the practical repercussions of her actions, she turns towards her own revenant again. "So I'm a hybrid, part Cylon and part human, like Hera?"

_"Yes and no. Hera may be the shape of things to come, but you are the bridge, Laura, the bridge to the future. The thing that will make it possible for Hera to fulfill her role, without hate or prejudice dogging her every step. You will pave the way; you carry within you the best of both races, a perfect fusion of Cylon and Human, beloved by both."_

She snorts, it's a sound born from equal parts laughter and bitterness. "Don't be so sure about that. I led humanity here, to the Promised Land, and it turned out to be a hellhole." She gestures around and an image of her body, curled up on the floor of the ruined Opera House, manifests itself, Baltar and Caprica, Sharon and Hera crowded around her still form. She points at Cranach and his party, standing over them with their guns pointing down at her still form. "People are angry."

_"That signifies nothing. What about the Admiral? The people will follow his lead."_

"Bill." His name feels good on her lips, even if the thought of him breaks her heart. His best friend turned out to be a Cylon and it nearly broke him. She herself had been the only one, their love for each other the only thing, that had been able to pull him back from the edge. What will this do to him, how will he cope when the person that breaks him is the one person able to heal him?

_"You love him still, yes? What about him, will his feelings for you change once he learns who you really are?"_

"I don't know." But as soon as she speaks the words, she knows them for the lie they are, she does know, she knows him, knows that he's given his heart to her long ago. It has been hers to keep, hers to safeguard, ever since and nothing is ever going to change that. "No. That's not true. I do know and the answer is no, he'll still feel the same."

_"Then there's hope."_

She's had enough of that word, the lie it represents, to last her a lifetime, several lifetimes "Where is the hope in that, we have no time, I'm still dying."

_"Perhaps."_

She thinks back to Cottle's words, his uncharacteristic words of hope, his own crotchety brand of encouragement but her brief flare of optimism is quickly extinguished as she feels the weight, the weariness of her physical body. She is growing weaker with every passing moment; if the Cancer won't kill her, the Chamalla surely will.

Still, she's close to the answer, she can feel it. Even if she doesn't live to see her purpose fulfilled - _what purpose?_ something inside her scoffs, _programming is more like it_ - there are people around her who can carry what she learns out into the fleet, can see this, whatever this is, through if she can't. She'll tell Caprica and Sharon, Baltar even, she's sure that somehow, Sam and Galen, Saul and Tory are listening in, have heard everything that has been said.

It will be enough.

She straightens to her full height, understands and accepts all of it for maybe the first time, the manifold parts of the puzzle of who she is, falling into place one by one. President and Prophet, a Teacher always, the Dying Leader, last of the Final Five, First among her People, Laura Roslin.

"Tell me how to break the cycle, prevent this from happening again, tell me where the Thirteenth Tribe went," she commands.

_"Not yet." _Her voice, so full of love, of laughter now._ "What happened here happened on Kobol, a multitude of other planets besides. The folly of man, the cycle of time, death and rebirth, what happened before, will happen again and again and again, until you get it right."_

"And when will that be?"

_"Perhaps sooner than you think."_ Her revenant says, a luminous smile lights up her face like a sudden sunrise and then her glowing figure bends forward, places a soft kiss on her forehead and like a switch has been flicked, she suddenly knows, she knows everything, knows how very, very wrong she was in her assumptions earlier. There is no destiny, there is no fate and she is certainly not some hapless victim of her own programming, like Boomer, shooting her beloved Old Man.

She, Laura Roslin, engineered this; she recognized the pattern, saw what was to come and sought to change that outcome.

Knowing the humans and Cylons would converge on this planet, locked in mortal combat, she and the other Four set up this trigger, set certain cues into place to prompt them into becoming self aware when the time came; the Ionian Nebula, her visions, Earth itself, so that the next step to the promised land, the location of the Thirteenth Tribe, would only be revealed when the war was over and their peoples united. When the truth, finally revealed, would prompt unity instead of dissent, when they all deserved to be saved.

With that final revelation, she slips back into her own body, the human shell that encases her. It is weary beyond measure and she thinks what bitter irony it would be if after all this, maybe she indeed won't have enough time left to accomplish her final task, the one thing neither the Four nor Caprica, Sharon, Baltar or Hera can do for her.

She awakens to the sound of gunshots and confusion. It takes her ages to roll her failing body onto her back, longer still to focus her eyes. People are milling about around her, she thinks she sees Hera looking at her from across the expanse but her sight is too blurry to be sure. More gunshots and a body lands in the periphery of her vision, she blinks and recognizes Cranach; his lifeless stare feels like a reproach. Reaching out with her good arm, even though it feels like lead and even the small movement is torture, she rests her hand on his forehead, closes his eyes.

Close by, she hears a familiar voice, barking orders and she struggles to get up off the floor, wanting to see that beloved face, fearing, at the same time, to see the expression in his eyes change from joy to revulsion. The world spins away from her with the effort of pushing herself upright and she closes her eyes tightly against the nauseating feeling. Her mind is still reeling from what she's learned, but the goal is in sight and she wills herself to find the calm at the center of the storm. She's so close, but she knows there are hurdles yet to overcome, and none as difficult as the one she is about to face.

When she finally deems it safe to open her eyes again, everything has gone quiet; dust swirls as it settles, made luminous as it dances in the flickering light of the pyres still burning brightly along the perimeter of the Opera House. Far off, she can hear the sound of crickets though she thinks that maybe that's just her imagination.

The snick of a safety catch as it's disengaged is all too real, though. It sounds like a sudden gunshot in the silence; she recognizes it from the time Kara held her at gunpoint. Laura follows the sound, looks up to find herself staring straight into Bill's stern blue gaze and the barrel of his gun where it is pointed right between her eyes.


	13. Chapter 13

When the Raptor touches down, there's a moment, just a moment, where Bill can't make himself move.

All that's happened in the last day, finding Earth a hellhole, making love to Laura, seeing her go down under a madman's bullet, hearing she had gone missing and not being able to go after her, waging war against the Cylons against overwhelming odds yet again, the way the enemy just stood down in the middle of battle when the battle had been going their way, it's all left him thoroughly pissed off and completely mystified.

He needs Laura. Usually when shit like this happens, she is by his side and together they make sense of things; not so this time. At a loss without her, he doesn't know what to think of it all, which in turn confuses him more, he's always been a man of reason and intelligence, used to carefully evaluating any circumstance and then taking decisive action. This utter confusion has him shaken up.

But that's not the worst of it. The worst of it; the thing that's left him paralyzed, that keeps him nailed to his seat even when the hatch has long since opened, is of another nature altogether. It's the news Cottle gave him just before he boarded the Raptor.

Having made a short detour to the Life Station and having ascertained his son was going to live, Bill had been accosted by his CMO on the way out, and it's Cottle's words that keep going around in his head as he sits there, staring at nothing.

"Admiral," Jack Cottles rough voice had hailed him, "Between all the injuries from the frakking riots and the battle against the Cylons I've had little chance to go over the President's records like I promised, but I did find a moment to give them the once over and I found something pretty disturbing." Cottle's face is scrunched up like yesterday's newspaper as he pronounces those fateful words, his craggy features displaying a deep sorrow that makes Bill afraid to ask the next question. As it turns out, he doesn't have to; Cottle forges on without waiting for permission. "There's no way to sugar coat this so I'll just come out and say it. The President's cancer? It was cured by the human elements in Hera's blood, not by the Cylon."

The implications of that staggering bit of news are not lost on Bill; they have had him frozen with indecision all during the ride down to the surface, contemplating his next move. It seems he is destined to always follow her down to some frakking planet or other, Kobol, New Caprica, now Earth, and always on some impossible mission. Put the fleet back together and help her find a mythical tomb which will point the way to Earth, rescue her and the rest of your people from Cylon occupied New Caprica against impossible odds, find a way to convince yourself that your suspicions are nothing but idle conjecture as you go down to Earth and face your own worst nightmare.

_You can do it,_ he tells himself, _you can set your fears aside and just concentrate on getting to her, you're the Admiral of the fleet for frak's sake. You'll face whatever you have to face once you've found her and convinced yourself she's alright. Then you can think about the other thing._

Resolve in place, Bill arises from his seat, leads his small team into the ruins of the city, towards the pyres he can see burning in the distance like a beacon calling him home, sure that that's where Laura is.

Halfway up the beach, they encounter half a dozen Cavils and Dorals, surrounded by Cylon Centurions. In the light of the half moon, he can see the humanoid models are slumped onto the sand in defeat; their metal counterparts stand immovable, not threatening Bill and his party, their attention focused on Cavil and his brothers. Cautiously, Bill signals his people to circle around the small gathering of Cylons and make for the shelter of the nearest buildings.

Under the cover of darkness they've almost made it to the relative safety of stone and concrete when one of the Cavils spots the small group of humans making their way up the beach. He throws himself in their direction, shouting obscenities and Bill and his party look on in disbelief as one of the Centurions moves to intercept, holds the Cavil in a secure grip and signals with its bullet like head for the humans to proceed.

Dumbfounded, Bill leaves a few of his people behind when they hit the first buildings, telling them to take cover and keep a close eye on the strange tableau on the beach. He has no idea what's going on but he'll be damned if he turns his back on a possible threat even if at the moment the Centurions look to be on their side.

At the foot of the hill from which the fires blaze, they encounter Racetrack and her party, along with Tyrol and Anders. Racetrack quickly fills them in on what happened after they set down. He gathers she was able to rescue Anders and Tyro, who were being held along with the rest of the landing party in the relatively intact building they are currently holed up in. Sharon, Caprica and Baltar were separated from the group and led up the hill, where they were joined by another party a few hours later, this one adding the President to the mix. Unable to gauge the intent of the group at the top of the hill, Racetrack and her party carefully laid down a perimeter and were just now conferring on their course of action. Further reconnaissance had revealed a number of Cylon contingents honing in on the hill top, one from the beach, the other from amidst the ruined city but the Toasters were acting strangely. The whole situation had clearly been way over his people's heads. Bill can't say he blames them, he's feeling out of his depth himself too, and that's putting it mildly.

Impatiently, he stops Racetrack's narrative with a wave of his hand; he's heard all he needs to know. As relieved as he is to see them, Bill only has one thing on his mind, it's the only question that means anything to him at this point. He turns towards Tyrol, intending to get the information from him by force if needs be. His former deck chief looks so sad and forlorn, it makes Bill remember himself. This is not just about Laura, not just about the Admiral and the President, every one of them, every one of their people, in some way or another has been affected by the last four years, Tyrol wears his heartbreak on his sleeve, for all the world to see and the profound sense of misery he projects moves Bill to take a more lenient approach. Remembering Chief Laird died when Laura was taken from his hanger deck Bill decides to put Tyrol first and give him what he needs.

"Chief, you're back in the hot seat," he barks, "the old girl needs some TLC from you as soon as we're back.

"Aye, Sir!" Tyrol snaps to attention, a slow smile spreads across his face like an early thaw. Such a small thing, so easily done, whatever else happens, Bill is glad he was able to give Tyrol this gift and see him come back to himself.

"Good." Bill swallows, feels his Adam's apple bob up and down like a floater on a fishing line being tugged down by a giant carp. "Now tell me the truth, is she one of you, is she the final one?"

Tyrol bows his head for a moment, then raises his eyes to meet his burning gaze and speaks one word. "Yes"

Bill turns around slowly, punches the wall behind him with his already damaged fist. The pain doesn't register; Tyrol's hand on his shoulder hardly seems real. All that's real is the thing he's been dreading most.

Laura is a Cylon, the last and the first of the enemy they had fought for so long, one of _them_.

Only now there is no us or them, Cylons are human, humans are Cylons. The Universe has been stood on its head, up is down and left is right; some humans act like mindless machines and some Cylons are more human than even the best of mankind's children.

Saul, for all his faults, is as loyal as they come, Tyrol is a man of integrity, he lives to serve the old bucket, his crew, his family and friends, Sam is as brave and steadfast as they come, even Tory who defected is only as confused as she is because she loved with all her heart, and found that love thwarted by circumstances.

And Laura, willful, independent, brave, brutal and uncompromising, magnificent Laura, who gave up her soul to safeguard the fleet, who would purchase humanities survival with her life's blood, who gave him her heart, that most precious commodity which she had so long guarded from him for fear of compromising her duty to their people.

_Her_ people.

That she should turn out to be the enemy, a frakking skinjob, is the biggest blow of all, she who had for so long fought so hard against them.

He cannot believe the irony of it; that he may well have to kill her to protect their people, _her_ people, the people of the fleet they so assiduously guarded; against her own kind as it turns out, against herself, all these years. Yet he knows he may have to, it's what she taught him after all, the people come first everything else is secondary.

But there's another lesson he's spent a lifetime learning.

There is also love.

It's a lesson he's learned well, and he doesn't know how to disregard it when she is the one who finished teaching it to him. He doesn't know if he'll be able to raise his hand against the woman he worships above all else, when she embodies everything he's learned of love.

It is unfathomable to him that this is what it comes down to. Can he do it? Raise his hand against her? Take her life? He hasn't had to with Saul and the others, they have not betrayed them yet, but he senses Laura, as the last of the Final Five, is in a whole other league than the rest of the Cylons, an unknown quantity,

Can he take her life?

In the end, he knows that in _her_ name, he can and he will. He will kill her if he must, if only to save her from becoming that which she abhors, a mindless automaton, slave to her own programming, or a tyrant, drunk on the power the reunion of the twelve models could conceivably give her. Either way, a fate worse than death. He knows she would not want him to stand idly by and watch her become the thing that will bring their people to their end, even if _their_ people were no longer strictly _her_ people.

Squaring his shoulders, Bill motions for his men to follow him. They silently ascend the hill, moving from shadow to shadow, slowly closing in on the gathering of people near the top. He does not see Laura. All he sees is half a dozen people with guns, standing in a loose circle around Baltar, Caprica, Sharon and Hera. All of them, captors and captives, are staring down at something, their attention focused on whatever is at their feet, rather than at their surroundings. Creeping closer Bill casts about for Laura, desperate to get a glimpse of her, unwilling to stage a raid when he doesn't know where she is, when she could be caught in the crossfire, die from a stray bullet before he's had a chance to speak to her, ascertain the truth about her, and decide his course of action. If she is to die because of what she is, of what she's become, it is only fair he should be her executioner and look her in the eye when she does.

The group at the top remains oblivious of their approach and it's only when one of them shifts his stance that Bill sees what they are all looking at so intently and an involuntary gasp escapes him.

They are all looking down at Laura; she's on the ground, her body curled in on itself, trembling.

Rage erupts as he sees her lying there, so frail and defenseless, armed men standing over her. He's not sure but he thinks she's lying in a pool of her own blood; it stains her skin a lurid red where her cheek rests on the floor, drips steadily from her injured hand.

She's in the throes of some grand mal seizure, it looks like; her limbs flail and thrash about, her eyes are tightly shut but he can see them moving rapidly back and forth behind her closed eyelids, she's moaning in distress, mumbling something but he can't make out what she's saying, however much he finds himself straining towards her. Cylon or not, she calls to him, calls to him on some deep, primal level, he is her protector, she is his. She doesn't deserve to be lying there, surrounded by guns and violence, suffering through some unimaginable torment when her poor body has already gone through so much. Thoughts of her too thin form assail him; frail and yet strong with the power of the spirit within, undulating on top of him as she rode him to oblivion earlier today. He has to forcibly quell the image as he tears his eyes away from her body writhing now on the cold ground of a devastated Earth.

Bill signals his men to circle around and surround the kidnappers and their captives. They move stealthily through the dark, Sam taking a contingent left while Tyrol leads his men off to the right. When Bill signals the attack, his people smoothly move in and after a brief struggle a couple of short bursts of gunfire and a well placed shot right between the eyes of the guy who looked to have been in charge of this fiasco, the battle is over as soon as it's begun.

With purposeful strides designed to mask his hesitation, Bill stalks over to where Laura is still curled up on the ground, her eyes are open and whatever it was that had her in its thrall, she seems to be coming out of it. He looks on as she reaches out and gently closes the eyes of the man that abducted her and then she rolls onto her back, slowly lifts her gaze until their eyes meet. He points his gun down at her, releases the safety; the sound is loud in the silence.

He tries to picture it in his head; the Admiral of the fleet stands over the President of the Colonies, pointing a gun at her even as the sight of her almost breaks him. He passes judgment, squeezes the trigger and watches as the light that is Laura Roslin flickers out of existence and the Universe dims.

He can't do it.

He has to do it.

"Laura." His voice is harsh with regret and unshed tears.

She mutely looks up at him from her prone position and all he wants to do is kneel next to her, take her in his arms and shelter her fragile body from the stone cold floor, hold onto her and never let her go again. He can't, not while he still doesn't know where her allegiances lie.

"Are you still you?" The question is laced with all the anguish of his desperate heart. _Yes. Just tell me yes,_ he thinks, _lie to me, I'll believe you_. His plea carries through in his voice, he knows by the flicker in her eyes that she's heard him.

"Yes and no." Her face is scrunched up, he can tell she's in pain, so weary, but her spirit won't bend, he sees it in her bewitching green eyes, hears it in her voice. Never one to obey his wishes just like that, she isn't about to start now.

"What does that mean?" _Please Laura, just please don't say it, don't make it real._

"I'm the last, Bill, the last of the Final Five."

"I know," he says, his voice catches in his throat; he can barely get the words out. His shoulders slump in defeat. "You're a skinjob." It comes out even harsher than intended; he doesn't want to be doing this.

"Don't..."

"I need you to tell me I can still trust you, tell me you're the same person I've known for four years, tell me…"

"I can't. I'm not the same," she says with her trademark bluntness. At the sound of her voice, the very timbre, tone and inflections identical to what he remembers from their many arguments, something uncoils inside of him. Her face, so earnest, her convictions, so passionate, she is so very dear to him. "But I can tell you that what matters to me is still the same," she continues, and then takes his breath away."You, always you."

"Oh, Laura."

Her smile is identical too, to the one that too rarely graced his love's face, the one that would light up whatever corner of the universe they would find themselves in. "You, and Lee and Kara and everyone else, our people. It's just that "_our people"_ needs to be redefined. That's something you'll have to convince Lee of, he'll need to know how to proceed when he steps up. He's going to be alright, isn't he? You need to tell him what happened here, how to move forward. Caprica and Sharon will help you, Galen and Sam and Saul. It's almost done; I just need to figure out the last of it, where to go from here. Then you can kill me, if you must, though I'm pretty sure the Cancer and the Chamalla are doing a good job of that on their own. Will you help me get this last thing done, please?"

It's the please that undoes him, she so rarely asks for help. The woman, the Cylon, the skinjob before him is the same woman he gave in to those many years ago, the woman whose lead he's been following ever since. There's no doubt, there never was, not really. She's Laura Roslin, as ever putting the fleet before herself, putting the survival of their people, their peoples, first and foremost. For a moment as long as infinity, as short as a heartbeat, he stands and stares and continues to point his gun at her and then, as if in slow motion, he falls to his knees beside her and gathers her to himself so tightly he fears he will hurt her.

"What do you need me to do?"

"You know? I'm not quite sure," she says. She looks a little sheepish with the admission and the sight of Laura Roslin looking sheepish is a thing to behold. He surprises himself by grinning down at her and when she starts giggling he can't help but laugh out loud and together they laugh at the absurdity of it all and their shared laughter is a gift they give each other, freely and without regret.

The spell is broken when noises erupt from their left. D'Anna and Tory, locked in a strange battle of wills with their Centurion guards. D'Anna ducks and feints, throws herself bodily against her guards. The Centurions do not react, other than preventing her from escaping, they do make halting progress towards the top of the hill though, every time D'Anna throws herself forward, the force of the impact against her metal prison forces the Centurions to regroup, take a step backwards, forces the group upwards just a bit. Tory looks catatonic, moving with the group, her body propelled this way and that as D'Anna and the Centurions continue their strange dance.

At the sight of President and Admiral, wrapped in an embrace, shaking with laughter, D'Anna looks apoplectic with rage. Bill starts to rise but Laura's weak grip on his jacket, her choked gasp, distract him and before he knows it, gunshots ring out and Laura is pushing him to the ground and he hears her grunt in pain, feels the impact as her body is flung against his, feels her blood spatter his face, turns and throws himself on top of her, feeling the sting as a bullet grazes his arm and his gun goes flying. His mind goes blank with sheer terror, frantically, he feels for her pulse, calls her name while at the same time he reaches for his gun which has skidded to a stop a few feet to his left. He sees the Centurions flip out their guns, they still have their backs towards him and all Bill can do is lean over Laura protectively as he sees D'Anna re-aiming her gun at them. Before she can squeeze the trigger again, before Bill or any of his people can do anything, Tory throws herself at D'Anna and her lithe body convulses with the impact as a bullet slices through her chest.

He's still trying to process what happened when he feels Laura move beneath him she's trying to push him off of her, all the while muttering to herself. "Don't." he hears her say, and "Stand down." And as he follows her intent gaze he is utterly bewildered to see the Centurions pointing their guns not at Laura and himself or any of their people but instead at D'Anna. After a moment, they flip back their weapons and two of them grip D'Anna tightly between them. Another is holding her weapon, while a fourth picks up Tory's lifeless body, cradling her almost reverently in the metal cage of its arms.

"What just happened?" Bill asks, bewildered.

"D'Anna, guess she doesn't like being powerless, the identity of the Final Cylon was all she had."

"That much I got, what about the Centurions, what about.."

"Later, Bill, I'll explain later, now help me to my feet."

"No, Laura, stay down, you're bleeding." She looks down at herself, sighs as her eyes find the patch of blood staining her jacket and the blouse underneath and leans back into his arms. He sees her glancing over at the Centurions and the one with Tory's body in his arms walks up to them and gently puts the young woman's broken body down beside Laura. She pushes out of Bills grasp; he helps her up and watches as she leans over and kisses Tory's cheek and then gently, so gently, closes her eyes. Sam and Galen kneel down beside the two and bow their heads as if in prayer as Laura falls back against Bill's chest, her face scrunched up, tears freely flowing down dirty cheeks.

"Easy now, just lie down, let me see where you're hurt," he says as he gently pushes her to the ground and starts to pull up her blouse, there's a nasty furrow along her ribcage but the bleeding has already slowed down. The sight makes him sigh in distress any way, how much more is she supposed to suffer?

"Don't worry," she says with a wry smile, as if reading his thoughts. "It won't kill me, hurts though."

He chuckles, taps his chest. "You're telling me?"

She smiles for him but then her expression goes serious again. "But I'm dying just the same, Bill; I can feel it, the Chamalla…"

"No! Cottle can help you."

"It's too late."

"Never, don't say that."

"But it is, and it's okay," she says with a faint smile. He hates her, in that moment; he hates her just a little, for giving up."The Dying Leader, remember? For my death to have some meaning, that's all I ever hoped for, since the worlds ended. That we found each other, had a chance to love each other, is more than I could ever have dreamed."

"I don't accept that. I don't accept that your death is the price we have to pay to pay, I don't accept that this is where we end."

"Bill, this was going to happen, this was always going to happen. It's what you do next, that changes everything." She reaches up and with infinite tenderness strokes his cheek. There's such certainty in her eyes, in her voice, he wants nothing more than to shatter that certainty, make her fight to stay with him.

There is also love.

He shushes her with his fingers on her lips and then he replaces his fingers with his mouth and he kisses her.

He's sure she meant something grander, something much more heroic, meant that his next move should be to push forward and lead the people without her, as she would have done were he the one dying an untimely death. He can't, he was never strong like that, he can't do any of this alone, he needs her, she was always the strong one,

So instead, he does what his heart tells him to do, he kisses her and breathes for her, breathes life into her, and as he does, they join together, these two leaders, the first and foremost members of their warring tribes, mortal enemies though they had not known it. Friends and lovers and so much more; parents of the future. He breathes for her and on his breath is born faith, faith that the future can escape the past, that the cycle of destruction can be broken, if they but held fast to each other.

He pulls back only when he becomes lightheaded, rests his mouth near her ear and whispers to her, his voice soft as the wing beats of a dove, whispers to her of his love, of his undying devotion, tells her how proud he is of her, how they are going to build that cabin and do nothing but watch their people have babies.

She smiles that singular smile of hers as she listens, weakly burrows deeper into his arms. She is so frail, her body all but used up. He whispers her name, reverently. He has never believed in the Gods, in God. To him, watching that luminous smile spread across her beautiful face is the closest to heaven he'll ever get and it's enough

"Laura?'

She reaches up and gently swipes her thumb across his lower lip. He sees the breath and the scope of his own love for her reflected back at him, sees her completely unguarded for the first time and thinks that perhaps he knows now why she's kept herself so closely buttoned up this whole time. The light of her love is blinding, it blazes from her eyes, stronger even than it did the first time she told him she loved him - and he'd been almost undone by it then. Unfettered, it is powerful enough to break across the barriers between them, between their peoples, break down hate and preconceptions. He shouldn't be as bowled over by the power of it, she's Laura Roslin after all; a force of nature even when now it seems nature had had no hand in creating her.

He reaches down and touches her face, leans down towards her and kisses her and she reciprocates with all the strength of her impossibly valiant heart. They kiss and for as long as their kiss lasts, neither one of them can tell where one ends and the other begins. Lovers they are, brought together by impossible longing, now joined as one.

"You did it. It is done," she breathes as their lips part and behind him Bill hears Tyrol and Anders gasp even as Laura clings to him tightly and whispers coordinates like secrets into his skin.

He holds her and weeps for the resurgence of hope.


	14. Chapter 14

The last thing Laura remembers is Bill, kissing her, a blinding flash of light then all encompassing dark; numbers, glowing white in the darkness like chalk on a blackboard. She remembers whispering them to Bill, remembers feeling his tears fall on her cheek, how hot they were on her chilled skin and then nothing; a nothing that stretches for minutes or hours or days, she's not sure which and she doesn't care, doesn't give it a second thought. It's quiet wherever she is, the dark is peaceful, no pain or grief or regrets intrude, no unsettling thoughts invade her mind, no messy feelings impinge upon her consciousness. It's a quiet kind of bliss, like being in the womb, cared for, body floating in nutrient, not a worry in the world.

But it's the quiet before the storm, the calm at the eye of the storm, the nothingness that exists only in the moment before the soul enters and ignites the flesh.

As soon as the thought enters her mind and takes root, the darkness gives way to light; smell and sound and feeling all return in a rush and she gasps as she opens her eyes, jerks upright and notes the pounding in her head, the tired ache of her body. _Life Station, you're in Life Station,_ her brain supplies even as her body struggles to catch up. The overhead lights are too bright, blinding her, and she can't move her arms. Somewhere to her right monitors start beeping wildly as she raises her head in alarm. She almost loses it completely when the fact that she's in restraints registers. Cringing at the thought of all that they imply she starts struggling, unsuccessfully, to get them off. Cottle's familiar rumble stops her just in time from lapsing into a full blown panic attack.

"Lay back, young lady," he says, stubbing out his cigarette in a nearby kidney dish. He shines his penlight in her eyes and she blinks back unwanted tears at his familiar presence, even welcomes the smell of tobacco and stale cigarettes he carries with him wherever he goes. She never thought she would live to return here, never thought she'd see any of her loved ones again; and yes, she counts her crotchety doctor amongst them. How are they all going to react to the revelations Earth brought about her true nature? Did she indeed succeed in what she set out to do? Did Bill recognize the string of numbers for what they were? Where was he? Why wasn't he here? The logical part of her mind tells her he's probably busy in CIC, after all that's happened that would be the most logical place for him to be. The irrational part of her brain supplies the counter argument, he is utterly disgusted with her, told her everything was going to be alright only to get what he wanted from her, and then denounced her.

Scared and apprehensive, she utters the first words that come into her mind, dreading the answer will only confirm that her overwhelming fear of being ousted, rejected by the people that mean the most to her, is justified. "Why am I tied up?"

"Because you've been restless, young lady, and I didn't want you hurting yourself; worse, that is." He bends down and unties her restraints, pats her arm awkwardly.

She huffs a sigh in relief, Cottle's answer supplying her with the strength to ask the next question. "Where's Bill?"

Cottle motions at the next bed. Laura finds Bill there, fast asleep, looking exhausted. Even in sleep, the strain of what happened hasn't left him. He's lying on top of the blankets, his clothes are rumpled, his hair unkempt and he looks like he hasn't shaven in days.

"Is he hurt?" she asks, worried. She remembers him throwing herself over her to protect her, remembers blood on the sleeve of his jacket.

"Nope, or at least nothing serious; just tired himself out worrying over you. Now tell me straight, how do you feel?"

Taking stock of herself, Laura notes her hand hurts and is back in a proper cast, her side where D'Anna's bullet grazed her, throbs like a rotten tooth and her head aches abominably. She rubs her temple, feels the soft scratch of her scarf where it covers her pounding skull. "Like I went one on one with a Viper and lost?"

Cottle chuffs, disappears for a moment, returns and injects something into the IV taped to the back of her hand. "That should help," he says as he tosses the spent syringe in the bin.

It's only then that she thinks to ask. "How am I still alive?"

"Frakking miracle if you ask me," he says as he sticks a cigarette in his mouth, lights it and leans his head back, blowing smoke at the ceiling. "By all rights you should have been dead but somehow they got you back here just in time to give you another one of those shots." He gestures to her hip with the hand that's holding the cigarette and smirks down at her. "I know how much you love those."

"Hmm." She throws him a halfhearted glare, glad of the normalcy of their interaction.

"Counteracted the Chamalla overdose," he continues. "Close call though. When we got you stabilized I fixed your hand back up - _again - _the wound to your side needed only a few stitches and voila, you're good as new, better even."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she bristles, taking his remark as an affront, even though she knows better. Cottle, as is so often the case, ignores her.

"It's the strangest thing, Baltar, of all people, comes barging in here, insisting he knows how to cure your cancer. I'd already found a way to keep you with us a while longer; human blood. I figured if we just gave you regular infusions of it, and undiluted, not like when we used Hera's blood, you'd be okay. But Baltar said eventually you would build up a resistance. So he goes and pores over your files and I'll be Gods damned if he doesn't find a way to make it stick. Says the last time, the Cylon DNA eventually took over the human DNA that cured you and made the cancer rear its ugly head again. You know I'm far from stupid, some would even call me pretty smart, but even I didn't understand all of it, that man's too brilliant for his own good. Long story short; Baltar's in my lab for a couple of days, sweating and making crazy eyes, spouting a lot of mumbo jumbo and the upshot is, you're cured."

"Oh." Something clicks into place, something else becomes unglued. She is no longer dying. Can it be that everything is going to work out after all?

"You sound disappointed?" He raises his bushy eyebrows, his face a perfect question mark.

She shakes her head no. _She is no longer dying._ "Stunned, happy, confused, maybe a bit hesitant to believe," she clarifies. "Mostly, I'm flabbergasted, actually. Baltar helped you?"

"Yep, bowled me over too, but whatever caused his change of heart, I'm glad it did; fleet's best off with you at the helm. Well, the metaphorical helm, that is. I think the Admiral and his crew best keep piloting the actual ships."

"How can you joke like that?" She lashes out, furiously. "How can you say you're better off with me?"

"Because we are?"

She needs to say it out loud, needs to make it real in the face of his trademark sarcasm. "You have been apprised of the fact that I'm a Cylon, right? The last of the Five?"

"So what? You know me, never one to take sides. Besides, you're Laura Roslin, are you not?"

"So?"

His voice softens, his entire posture softens. "That's enough for me; you're the best frakking thing to happen to us, ever." She thinks she's never seen him so serious.

"Don't be so sure about that."

"I am, so is just about everyone else."

"How?"

He just shrugs his shoulders. Frustrated at his non answer, she casts about her, remembering how she was able to read things so clearly when she was under the influence of the Chamalla, but either her heightened percipience was caused by the overdose of Chamalla in her system or the drugs Cottle gave her are dampening those perceptions. Whatever it is, she has no more idea what Cottle or anyone else is thinking than she had before all of this happened.

"You know what, I'll let the Admiral answer that," Cottle says as a noise from the other bed alerts them both to the fact that the Admiral is rousing from his slumber. Cottle squeezes her good hand. "Just take it easy, alright? Don't keep nagging him with questions, try to get some sleep; most everything will keep until tomorrow."

Laura nods mutely and watches him leave in a cloud of smoke; unable to believe what he told her is true. She needs someone else to confirm it, needs Bill to tell her everything will be alright, that she will be alright. She needs him to assure her that the acceptance she saw in Cottle does indeed extend farther than just her small circle of intimates, extends, most importantly, to him. Though he's already shown it to her up on that hilltop, somehow, it won't seem real until he confirms it back here, on Galactica, their home.

Blurry blue eyes meet hers as she shifts her gaze to Bill. He's yawning and stretching, working out the kinks as he slowly wakes up in the bed next to her. Once their eyes meet, he's instantly alert, jumps from the bed with an agility befitting a much younger man.

"Bill?" She strains to sit up but her muscles won't obey, her body is still in the grip of a fatigue so profound it's all she can do to raise her hand to meet his halfway. He grasps her fingers in a gentle grip, kisses her knuckles one by one. His glad smile warms her heart like nothing else can or ever could.

"Stay down, you're still weak," he whispers.

"I may be weak, but I'm cured," she says, the wonder of it still fresh, the truth of it having hardly had time to sink in.

"I know." His radiant smile is like a gift. She accepts it gladly, reaches out and beckons him to her. He bends over her and she touches his face, runs her thumb lightly over his stubble. He clasps her fingers in his, pushes his face into the palm of her hand. His other hand strokes her cheek, his forefinger running just under the edge of her scarf, caressing her brow. The familiarity of their interactions, his loving touch, so gentle, makes the tight knot in her stomach unravel a bit.

"How long have I been here?" she finally asks, breaking the spell but needing to know.

"Four days."

She can't suppress her consternation at that. "I've been out four days?"

"Yes."

"And you've been here the whole time?"

He puts her hand down on the bed next to her, covers it with his own, much larger one and sits down in the chair beside her. Wincing as the movement pulls at the stitches in her side, Laura angles her body towards him, dismayed at the effort it takes. Ignoring her weakness, she focuses instead on Bill's exhausted voice, his eyes, where the remnants of fear still swim behind his relief.

"Yes, well most of the time, Kara and Lee took turns when I was needed in CIC, Dee and Caprica too, Saul even, if you can believe it."

"Bill, I…"

"Don't talk, just rest." His voice is a velvety whisper, his fingers stroke a path along her arm, from shoulder to fingertips, trailing warmth into her skin. She wants to just let go, be comforted by his presence, sleep for about a week, do as the good doctor ordered. She suspects Cottle slipped her a sedative when he'd administered the painkiller, her eyes keep refusing to focus, her eyelids droop of their own accord, sleep is beckoning and she longs to follow. She doesn't have time for that though; four days. She'd already been out of the loop for four whole days, she needs to know what happened, needs to know what is going on with the fleet, needs to know how much of what happened on Earth has made it back up here, how the people are taking the news, so many other things besides.

Fighting to stay awake just a little bit longer, she struggles to sit up straighter, slaps feebly at Bill's hands as he tries to push her back. "I can't, not yet, I need to…"

He gives in, looking aghast, probably at the breathless quality of her voice as she strains to push herself upright and talk at the same time, it unnerves her too. Carefully, he helps her sit up straight, pushes pillows behind her back, propping her up.

As he helps her up, Bill keeps up a companionable patter, probably as much to distract her as to prevent himself from swearing at how weak and hurt she is. She can still read him like a book most of the time and thinks that that's something that will never change. "Lee and Kara told me to tell you to take it easy by the way," he says as he sits back down. "Told me to tell you to get better soon."

"They're both okay?"

"They're both fine, Kara didn't even suffer a scratch and Lee is recovering nicely."

"That's not quite what I asked."

"I know, I know." He says thickly, running his hands through his hair. "They're as shaken up as the rest of us, more so, but they'll be okay. I even think they finally gave in and might be getting together for real now."

"Good." Some of the lassitude leaves her, now that she's no longer on her back, she's grateful he helped her up, even against his better judgment.

"Yeah, about time." A small smile plays at the corners of his mouth, it's there and gone but it gives her the courage to face the next question.

"The fleet?"

"We jumped them away before the shooting started; the civilian fleet's all present and accounted for."

"But not your people."

It's not a question and his face twists as he answers her. "We lost a lot of good pilots, crewmen too; Helo and Brynn didn't make it."

Oh Bill. Wanting to give him something to assuage his pain, she tells him, "I saw them." At his surprised glance, she recounts for him what she experienced, what she saw, the river of stars, the souls of their loved ones, their fallen comrades, tells him of the Centurions, the Hybrids, how she freed them, how they pledged their allegiance to her.

"So that was you too?" he says, wonder and awe coloring his voice, replacing loss. "Saul guessed as much, but he didn't look like he believed it himself. You're what stopped the battle, made them stand down?"

"I guess." She shrugs and curses herself when her side twinges in reproach. "Is Sharon alright? Hera?"

"Grieving, as expected, but they'll pull through, they have lots of help." He pauses, looks down at his hands. "Heavy casualties."

"I'm sorry I didn't get there in time," she says, feeling the weight of it, shouldering it with him. "Redwing, Hotdog, all of them, I could have saved them if I'd figured it out sooner."

"Don't blame yourself; you saved all the rest of us." He shakes his head. "I can't believe we have even more to thank you for."

"What do you mean, even more?"

"Those coordinates you gave us? You remember that, right, just before you passed out?" She nods and he smiles and his smile is like the sun dawning over Lake Caprica. "We're about six jumps away from finding the Thirteenth Tribe, maybe claiming our new home."

She gasps then, feels the truth of it. "I didn't dare hope."

"Yet you gave us all hope when we thought that all hope was lost."

"So they're not all out to lynch me?" she only half jokes.

"Nope, far from it. Even if this turns out to be another dud," he raises his hands as she starts to protest, "which I for one don't think will happen, but even if it does, we're no longer running for our lives, we've got time now, time to find a new home, time to settle down, in peace. The people know they have you to thank for that, they're slowly adjusting to the rest."

"And you? Are you okay with what I am? Are we okay?" She looks down at her lap, feels a sob constricting her throat, her eyes feel raw with the need to cry. He's already shown her how he feels, time and time again. From the moment their eyes met as he was waking up, he's been nothing but sweet and gentle, but she needs to hear him say it.

"Laura," he murmurs as he ducks his head, tries to catch her gaze. The sincerity in his voice, the blaze of love in his eyes, it's all too much for her, fat tears wet her lashes, plop down onto the blanket one by one. He hooks his finger under her chin, forces her to face him. His thumb swipes at the tears slowly dampening her cheeks "It does not matter to me what you are or where you came from, just that you are here, with me. If there's one thing this whole mess has made perfectly clear, it's that it's our actions that define us, not our origins.

"That and that I love you beyond reason."

The knot in her stomach finally loosens and she takes a shuddering breath. "Will you hold me, please?"

"Ah, Laura." He bends over her, awkwardly hugs her to him; she presses her face into the crook of his neck, clings to him desperately as the tears she's kept pent up all this time finally start to fall in earnest, wetting the fabric of his uniform. Sobs wrack her body and in a paroxysm of sorrow she pounds her fist into his chest, trying to expel the fury of her grief. He just holds her, rubbing circles into her back as all the fear and rage and heartbreak of the last few days, the last few years, come pouring out in a flood.

"I'm sorry, Bill," she hiccups at last. "I'm so, so sorry. I never meant to deceive you; I didn't even know what I was until…"

He shushes her. "You have nothing to be sorry for, you cannot fault yourself for the way you came into being, none of us can."

As ever, he touches right upon the thing that bothers her most, even if he has no way of knowing this time. "But I chose this, I chose to inhabit a human body," she says, as she draws back out of his embrace so she can face him head on; even if tears are still streaming down her cheeks. "Instead of waiting until I could resurrect into a Cylon one, I moved into this body, I chose to cross that bridge."

"What do you mean?"

"I came to the colonies with the rest of the Five; I died just before we reached Caprica." Calmer now, she wipes away the last of her tears

"I know," he says as he reached for the box of tissues on her bedside table, pauses as she blows her nose. "I spoke at length with Tyrol and Anders and Saul. I know everything and there's nothing in anything I heard that will ever change how I feel about you."

Grateful for his acceptance, she still needs to tell him, needs to get the sting of it out. "I resurrected in a human body, I don't know how I did it, but I did, and…"

"You did so out of need, you were aware of the timeline, you could not afford to languish; you had a plan but time was short. Saul told me all about it."

"But still, I stole a body someone else was destined to claim." There, it's out in the open now, maybe the worst crime she committed against the race she had so long claimed as her own.

He just shakes his head. "Maybe," he says, "and maybe you took the natural next step in the evolution of your species. Maybe that body was meant for you to be born into. In fact, I couldn't think of you in any other shape or form, you're perfect and that can certainly not have been an accident."

She snorts at that. "You should have seen me as a blonde then."

"Blonde, huh? I would have paid to have seen that."

"Pity. You're only, what… three lifetimes too late?" She sighs as some of the tension eases with their shared banter, still, there's so much more to be said. "But seriously, sometimes it seems that all life is, is just a series of accidents; that there is no fate, no predestination, no grand design, just a sequence of random events, strung together without rhyme or reason. Believing in a higher power just seems like foolishness."

"You don't mean that."

"I don't know that I don't." She sighs, looks down. Her fingers are haphazardly plucking at the blanket covering her, a nervous gesture she stills as soon as she becomes aware of it. "I don't know what I believe in anymore."

"The Gods, God?"

"They don't exist except in the minds of the people, they are constructs, ordinary people deified for doing extraordinary things, and maybe that's okay, maybe not. I do now know nothing about them should be taken literally, trust me, I should know, I became one myself; it was not a good experience."

He chuckles, blindsides her with the next question. "What about Pythia?"

It takes her a moment to recover, to formulate her reply. "Parables, folklore. She thinks of Elosha, walking around with her on an abandoned Galactica discussion theology and smiles. "She got a lot of things right, just as many things wrong too."

"Was she wrong about the Dying Leader?"

There is the rub, she thinks as she strives to answer him as honestly as she can. "I don't know. I think it's me, or rather, as it seems, _was_ me. I led the Five to the colonies, the Promised Land of the Twelve Tribes, I died, just before we reached them; _the Dying Leader shall not live to enter the new land._ It appears I already lived that part of the prophecy, sort of."

"How can you say all that and still maintain you don't believe anymore?"

"I guess maybe a lot of things need to be redefined, huh?" Bill chuckles and she smiles with him.

"I think you're very right there," he replies.

"I believe in something, though," she says. "More than I've ever believed in anything else."

"What's that?"

"You."

He grins that lopsided, full toothed grin she loves as he leans in and rests his forehead against hers. "Good, because I believe in you."

He kisses her then and she throws her good arm around his neck, getting her IV line hopelessly tangled in the buttons of his jacket. She doesn't care, doesn't hear the shrill beep of the various monitors she's hooked up to when her readings go haywire. All she's aware of is the feeling of Bill's lips, moving against her own. , his tongue as it swipes across her teeth, pushes into her mouth. She responds in kind, explores his mouth as if she's discovering him anew, and in a sense, she is. His hand moves to the back of her neck and he presses them ever closer and their kiss turns from tender to passionate, hot and heavy with want. She doesn't mind the bruising force of it, she needs the connection, needs this last piece of evidence to fall into place, he's still hers, she's still his, the heat and passion of their kiss seals it. They don't pull apart until they hear Cottle approach, cursing up a storm.

"What the frak is going on here?" he thunders as he barges in on them in a cloud of smoke. "You two already at it like frakking bunnies? Get a grip, at least wait until you're out of my sickbay, Gods."

Laura grins up at Cottle, unabashedly, and then surprises herself by yawning into Bill's shoulder, perhaps she is not as alert as she'd thought. "When will that be?" she hears herself asking, even as her eyelids grow too heavy to keep open and she drifts, secure in Bill's arms. The answer is lost on her, but the feel of Bill, kissing her forehead as she nods off, is what she takes with her into her dreamscape. Just before sleep claims her, she feels a small smile curl around the corners of her mouth and with a start she realizes she is content.


	15. Chapter 15

She wakes up, hours later, and he is still beside her, she is still in his arms, safe and protected. Better yet, he somehow managed to climb into bed with her and her back is spooned to his front. Utterly relaxed for the first time in what feels like forever, she snuggles back against him, into the warm solidity of him, smiles as she feels his body respond to their intimate position. He's dreaming of teaching her how to fly, calling her nugget and needling her about her sloppy technique. The sudden insight has her casting about for more but it seems her heightened perception is now limited and what there is left of it is beyond her control. She figures that the previous scope of it can no doubt be attributed to the overdose of Chamalla. After a moment, she decides she's not sorry. It would be unnerving at best to walk around knowing what everyone else is thinking. She knows too much as it is, has seen enough to last her several lifetimes; besides, it might freak people out if they learn she can read them and she doesn't need that heaped on her head too.

Shaking off the unwelcome thought, she leans back into Bill's embrace with a languid sigh, noting that somewhere during the night, someone came in and unhooked her from the various monitors she'd been attached to. Life Station is quiet all around them and a glance at Bill's wrist watch tells her it's very early in the morning. The only thing breaking the silence is the clunk and creak of the Galactica as she ferries them across the heavens, the gentle beeping of monitors not her own and Bill's soft snoring. She gently pokes him in the ribs to make him change his position and gradually, his breathing evens out. Looking down at him, a wave of such love sweeps through her that she has to kiss him, even at the risk of waking him. The soft caress of her lips to the tip of his nose doesn't rouse him though, nor the gentle touch of her fingers as the ghost along his bottom lip. His dreams make him smile with the uncluttered joy of a boy unacquainted with grief and she resolves to make him teach her how to fly as soon as the opportunity presents itself, sooner if she can help it. His hand is thrown over her hip and she caresses the back of it, the prominent veins under his surprisingly soft skin. She feels so much better that it's almost ludicrous. A good crying jag and a night spent in her love's arms and somehow, magically, the universe does not seem nearly as screwed up as it had before?

Madness; but if this is what it feels like to be mad, she will more than happily sign up for the loony bin.

Feeling that peculiar tingle along her spine that tells her someone is watching her, Laura looks up and finds herself staring straight into Saul Tigh's one eyed glare. Gently she extricates herself from Bill's grasp, not wanting to wake him. She sits up, swings her legs over the side of the bed, pleased to note how much easier she's able to move after the profound lassitude that had had her in its grip earlier; a good night's sleep will do wonders for that too, apparently. She smiles down at Bill in gratitude as she gently removes his hand from her leg. A strangled expletive draws her out of her contemplation, and she looks up, startled, as Saul advances on her, roughly pulls her into an embrace and then pushes her back just as roughly and starts pacing the deck.

"What the hell were you doing, nearly giving me a heart attack," he growls. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again when you went out into the middle of the battle like that, and just when I found out you were you. Frakking screwed up, all of it." All she can do is smile at him as he stalks to and fro. He stops to glare at her. "Guess we did good though, huh?"

Noting her amusement, he advances on her like an avalanche but knowing who they are to each other, he no longer has the power to daunt her, nor he the desire, she knows from the look in his one remaining eye. "Don't ever pull a stunt like that ever again though," he barks, "or I'll have your hide!"

"Aye, Captain." She mock salutes him like she did when she was six and he was seven and they were playing at being pirates and she can swear he cracks a smile.

He leans over and kisses her cheek then, and she's surprised that he can still surprise her after all the many centuries they have known each other, it pleases her too. His voice cracks a little as he whispers in her ear. "And what the frak were you thinking, tasking me with a job like that. You watch over him yourself, you hear?"

"I will, big brother o'mine."

He steps back, stands at attention. "Good, now get your asses into gear, you're needed. Tell him boom, boom, boom."

"I still don't know what that means."

"He will," Saul growls as he smartly turns on his heels and stalks out of her cubicle. She smiles softly, memories crowding in. Saul and the others had always been about equally apart in age, she, with her uncertain life span, had been his big sis as well as his little sister throughout their lives, she preferred the latter to the former, his gruff protectiveness always made her feel safe and cared for.

With the memories of her past lives slowly returning to her, she cannot believe how effectively they were able to erase centuries of shared experiences, how they didn't surface until the conditions they'd set for themselves were met. Wondering if she'll ever understand it all, how they managed to pull it all out of the fire in the midst of such chaos is a mystery to her; she briefly contemplates that maybe some kind of divine hand may have had something to do with that after all.

Idly speculation, she thinks and with little effort rouses herself from her thoughts and sets her sights on more immediate pursuits. Turning towards Bill, she softly shakes him awake and seals his mouth with a kiss as he mutters and objection. His eyes blink open and she smiles at the naked love and devotion in them as he recognizes who dared wake him.

"Hey," she whispers.

"Hey, you," he mumbles sleepily." Had a nice dream."

"I know you did," she says, "you were smiling."

"What time is it?"

"Oh-five-hundred," she says and he smiles so broadly at her use of Military slang that she has to kiss him again.

"Come here," Bill murmurs as he pulls her down onto the bed. She settles on her side again and he spoons himself against her back. "Too early to be up and about."

She giggles and wiggles back against him when she feels his hard on press against her backside. "Yes, Sir!"

"Feeling frisky, huh?" he murmurs into her ear and then makes her gasp as he starts raining kisses down on her jaw line, nipping and sucking and laving the exposed skin of her shoulder and neck, tugging on her earlobe. One arm slips under her, the other goes up and over and she finds herself helplessly melting into a puddle of delight under his touch. The hospital gown makes for easy access as his hands cup her breasts, _her healthy breast_ she cannot help but think before all thought leaves her as he caresses the skin between them, tweaks her nipples until they stand at attention. His other hand meanwhile is on a mission down south. He gently trails his fingers down her abdomen, carefully avoiding the bandage on her side and the stitches beneath. She gasps as he delicately circles her belly button and raises her hand to her mouth to stifle a moan, only too aware that they are in a public place, shielded from others by only a thin curtain. All the while, his fingers venture ever further down to where she needs him most. She feels her labia swell as his fingers dip below the waistband of her panties. Heat pools between her legs and she's already ridiculously - embarrassingly - wet and so, so ready for him.

His fingers stroke the bare mound of her sex where hair has yet to start growing back in and the feeling of his calloused fingers sliding over her soft, sensitive skin elicits another moan. She spreads her legs a little to give him better access and he enters her, pushing just one finger in as his thumb ghosts over her clit. He rolls one nipple between the fingers of his other hand and sucks on her neck hard enough to leave a bruise and she has to clench her jaw, hard, to contain her gasps of pleasure.

Slowly pumping his finger in and out he sets a pattern where he delves deep within, then withdraws and spreads her wetness across her swollen clit, paints it across her engorged labia. When unexpectedly he pushes in with two fingers on the next run she almost lifts off the bed, writhing in ecstasy, but as her hips buck into his hand she cannot suppress a wince when the sudden movement pulls at her stitches. His hands still and she moans a protest at the loss of his touch.

"Shh," he whispers and lowers the hand that had been doing such delectable things to her breasts. His broad palm comes to rest against her diaphragm, his fingers splay out across her stomach and gently but firmly he anchors her to him, keeping her immobile as he resumes his ministrations.

The feeling of his body encasing her so completely, the fact that she's barely able to move, heightens sensation, makes her hyper aware of his every move. He slides another finger in and deepens his thrusts, varies the angle of penetration and it's all she can do not to cry out at the delicious friction. Already knowing her so intimately, he senses when she's close, withdraws and caresses the swell of her hips, her stomach, that sensitive spot just below her hipbone anywhere he can reach; anywhere but where she desires his touch most; waiting for her to calm down. He brings her to the edge again and again, never allowing her to fall over, until finally she can't stand it anymore.

"Stop teasing, Bill," she breathes.

"Yes, Sir, just waiting for your orders, Sir," he rumbles and lightning quick, he shoves his fingers home, slides them as far up inside her as he can manage, scissors them in her depths. The unexpected force and pressure of it is heavenly and she shoves her fist in her mouth to smother her surprised yelp. Zeroing in on his target like the good little pilot he is, his questing fingers find her g-spot, caress her there while the heel of his hand presses down on her clit and she's off, coming unglued like a well used toy, flying apart like a clutch of leaves in a storm. She throws her head back, vaguely feels his lips on her cheek but then an inarticulate scream of pleasure starts building in her throat and she turns her face into the pillow, fist still in her mouth, as he brings her to completion. She can feel her inner walls flutter and contract around his fingers, as her body starts to shake in his embrace. She's anchored to him so tightly though and instead of a succession of fast, tight spasm that might have hurt her, she shudders through a prolonged series of tremors and contractions that stretch out her orgasm deliciously. The fact that Bill's talented fingers are still moving inside her fluttering tunnel while his palm still grinds down on her clit, only prolongs the swell of her climax even more and for a while, everything vanishes but pure bliss so intense she nearly passes out from the overload of sensations.

He seems to sense this too and carefully he extricates his fingers, kisses the back of her neck and gently pets and strokes her, helping her come down from her high. He chuckles when she rolls onto her back and scoots back to give her some room. Her side is pressed into his front and she can feel the heat of his hard on against her hip. She looks up at him through heavy lidded eyes and reaches for him with her good hand but he stays her.

"No need. That was for you, just a little thank you, Ma'am for saving all of us."

Laura raises an incredulous eyebrow; he can be so dense sometimes. "You have no idea what you did, do you?" she asks him. His surprised reaction tells her that indeed, he doesn't and she proceeds to set him straight with alacrity. "Do you not know it was you who tipped the scales, you who completed the equation? So many times, the cycle ended and started again, different in detail, but the outcome always the same, total annihilation of the Cylon race, near extermination of the human race. This time, we get to go on and build a future together and it was you who made it happen, by accepting me as your partner and equal you unlocked those coordinates. It was you and your big, big heart."

"Me and you, then, just like it's always been. The two of us, making the impossible happen." He smiles a self deprecating smile which makes her want to slap him but her ire evaporates when he kisses her forehead where her scarf has ridden up to expose the new growth of hair covering her head like the fine down on a baby. When he rolls onto his back too and gathers her to him, she willingly follows and after a bit of careful maneuvering in the too small bed she's lying half on top of him, her ear to his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart as it beats in time with her own.

She basks in it for a few glorious moments, revels in the feeling of them, just lying there together, and allows herself a moment to reflect that out of all the possible outcomes she might have envisioned, this certainly was not one of them. Human Admiral and Cylon President, shacked up, she can see the headlines now. She snorts in amusement and the fleeting thought that for all she knows she's been impeached and relieved of her duties days ago registers but she finds she doesn't much care. Her work is almost done. Hard on the heels of that thought, another thought intrudes and her eyes fly open.

"I forgot to tell you," she whispers into the skin of his neck. "Saul was here just now, told me to tell you, boom, boom, boom."

The news makes him jumps up out of the bed so quickly that she tumbles face first into the sheets where his body has just been.

Unrepentant, Bill helps her up, gently sets her on her feet and goes diving into the duffel bag at the foot of her bed. Presumably, he brought it in earlier while she was still out, sure she would wake up. The thought is oddly touching, his faith in her so strong. With a triumphant grin, he surfaces, hands her a blouse, a bra and a fresh set of panties, her dress pants. He looks a little foolish, standing there in his rumpled uniform, sporting the worst case of bed hair in the history of ever, holding up her bra and panties while a hard on tents the front of his uniform trousers.

She thinks she's never loved him more.

Grinning from ear to ear, she carefully pulls the hospital gown over her head. Her smile morphs into a grimace as the movement pulls at the still tender furrow along her ribcage. Seeing her wince, Bill helps her into her bra, his movements gentle but urgent. He slips her arms into the sleeves of the silk blouse, buttons her up when the cast makes it difficult for her to do up her own buttons. She leans on him as he helps her into her panties, then her slacks; as he slides the material up her legs, he kisses the inside of her knees, rubs his face along the soft skin of her thigh. She sways at the feel of him against her over sensitized skin and he quickly straightens up, catches and steadies her before zippering her up.

"I'm sorry," he says as he straightens his own clothes. She reaches up and smoothes his hair into some semblance of control.

"Don't be, it felt wonderful, you feel wonderful and I expect a whole lot more of where that came from when we get to your quarters."

"_Our_ quarters, and that's not where we're going," he says as he rummages around in the drawers of her nightstand

"It's not?" the pronoun pleases her, the fact that he's holding up her wig pleases her even more. She hates he damned thing but prefers it to wearing her scarf in public.

"Well, it will be, but first a little detour." With a last, critical glance, he slips her glasses into the V of her blouse, dons his own, reaches out to minutely adjust her wig and pronounces them ready to go.

Forgoing a wheelchair in favor of Bill's arm, around her waist, even though Cottle violently objects to it, a familiar diatribe with lots of colorful expletives mixed in, they slowly make their way to the hatch. She's surprised to find Jack joining them, especially after his tirade but a look from him silences the question already on her lips.

Outside Life Station Jarez stands at attention, Brynn's pace by his side taken up by a Marine she vaguely recognizes. She lets go of Bill's arm briefly, walks up to Jarez and stands on tiptoes to press a soft kiss to his cheek. He looks down at her, startled and then concerned as she winces and lowers her heels to the deck.

"Madam President?" Well, that answers that question.

"I'm okay, I…" she swallows, "I just wanted to say thank you, and to tell you how sorry I am."

"Not your fault, Ma'am," he stoically replies. "Hazards of the job."

"Still, I am sorry. You two were a team for so long, it must feel very much like you're missing a part of yourself."

He nods and she squeezes his arm as she turns towards his new partner and welcomes him.

Bill takes her arm again as she sways a little, the strain of being up and about worse than she'd anticipated, maybe she is not doing as great as she'd thought earlier, she muses. Maybe she's a little nervous stepping out into the corridors and meeting their people, testing the truth of what Bill assures her of, that they're not all out to lynch her. She feels Cottle slip his arm into the crook of her elbow, supporting her and throws him a grateful look which he ignores with a characteristic show of indifference that, as eve, never quite masks his gentler nature.

"Where are we going?"

"Patience, my love." The exited gleam in Bills eyes buoys her up and they continue on their way in silence, making good progress thanks largely to the fact that between them, Bill and Jack all but carry her along.

They run into various crew members on their way to wherever it is they are going and she smiles gratefully as they salute Admiral and President both, watch her with no recrimination in their eyes. Slowly, her nerves settle and she tries to pay attention to where they are going but as ever, she's already lost in the maze of corridors, has been the moment they left the familiarity of the hallways surrounding Life Station. Bill and Jack set a steady pace and with their staunch support either side of her she is able to keep up, even though the walk is tiring her out faster than she'd care to admit. After a few more turn they come to the wall of remembrance and she motions for her escorts to stop. It feels strange after all that has happened to send up a prayer to the Gods for all the souls they have lost during the long years of their struggle but she finds the familiar words offer comfort still and if that's what she takes away from them, that's okay, they still have a place. Maybe that's just one more thing that needs to be redefined; then again, maybe not. People will find comfort where they may and that's okay too.

After a few moments spent in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, they move on, walk the length of the wall then round a few more corners and traverse more corridors that all look like each other. She's just about ready to admit, if only to herself, that she is well and truly lost, when she suddenly starts to recognize her surroundings. Before long, they arrive at their destination, which turns out to be the observation deck.

Just before Jarez spins open the hatch and allows them entrance, Bill leans over and whispers in her ear. "Boom, boom, boom, Madam President."

Laura turns on her heels towards him, starts to ask what he means but then the hatch swings open and Bill just laughs as he takes her through into the room beyond. When they enter, a profound silence settles over the deck as everyone present turns to face them. Laura feels a moment of panic being confronted with so many people at once, it seems half the crew is packed into the room and all she can see of the view screen is a sliver of black, a few pin points of light, stars, part of an unfamiliar constellation. Silence reigns for seconds that feel like hours and then, somewhere, someone starts to clap and soon the thunderous roar of applause fills the observation deck.

Uncomfortable, Laura looks at the floor, clears her throat but no words come out and Bill, sensing her discomfort, raises his hand, shakes his head and slowly the applause dies down. It's soon replaced by exited murmurs and Laura feels a surge of gratitude when they are no longer the center of attention. Bill leads her through the crowd towards the view screen and there they find Lee and Kara, deep in conversation. Lee is sporting a sling and looks a little grey around the edges but he seems to be well on the road to recovery and she's glad.

At their approach, Lee steps forward and hugs first his father, then Laura. He rests his cheek against hers for a moment and she can feel his tears drip down her face and soak into the material of her blouse.

"I thought I'd lost you, that you were dead and we lost you and it was all my fault for letting you go in there on your own," he whispers haltingly. She hugs her to her for a long moment, her almost son, and then pushes back out of his embrace to face him.

"When did I ever let you _let_ me do anything, huh, Captain Apollo?" she teases him and sees his lips curl into a hesitant smile. "I'm just sorry I had to leave you like that, I didn't see any other way."

She kisses him on the cheek and when he steps back, Laura finds Kara, standing in front of her, staring down at her shoes, arms clasped behind her back, looking awkward and forlorn.

Without hesitation, Laura gathers the young woman in her arms and tries not to wince as Kara slips her arms around her middle and returns her hug with all the strength of her tall, willowy frame.

"The children of the one reborn shall find their own country," Kara mumbles in her ear.

"What did you say?" Laura asks, drawing back a little.

"The children of the one reborn shall find their own country. It's something the Rebel Hybrid said."

Laura smiles at the young woman, this ersatz daughter of hers. Somewhere in all this, the brash, cocky girl child morphed into a grown woman not afraid to face uncomfortable truths. "Don't put too much stock in prophecies and myths from here on out, okay?"

Kara frowns in confusion. "But it all came true, didn't it? I talked to Sam; he told me all about it."

"Some of it did come true, yes, but look how it had us all tied into knots and at each other's throats along the way."

"I destroyed a whole civilization; Earth became a wasteland because I crashed there."

"Earth became a wasteland because of the folly of men, not because of anything you did. We assigned certain monikers to you when you landed and they became truths and pretty soon, we were waging war amongst ourselves, but that did not have anything to do with you, not really. No more than a single drop of rain has anything to do with how tall a tree grows. You are _not_ the Harbinger of Death, Kara Thrace. What you _are_ is someone I am very proud to know."

Kara nods and lets her go. "Likewise, Madam President."

She looks around then, sees Gaeta mouth a countdown into a headset and realizes they are about to jump, though who is left in CIC to jump the ship is a mystery to her, seeing as their whole fractured family is gathered here, on the observation deck. Lee and Kara and Sam, Saul and Caprica, Sharon and Hera, Dee, Gaeta, Tyrol and Nicky and Boomer standing with them. Laura recognizes her with a start, so similar yet so different from Sharon. Even Gaius is in attendance; gone are his ridiculous robes and he looks oddly self possessed and serene, standing off by himself in a corner of the room with a pleased expression on his face miles removed from the self satisfied smirk she is used to seeing on him. It's almost disconcerting and when he starts to gesture animatedly and talk and to no one she can see, she finds relief in the familiarity of it. She can almost see the retinue that surrounds him, possibly a copy of herself, Caprica probably and most definitely a copy of himself and a sudden intuition tells her it was the Baltar in his head that appeared in her visions, not the corporal one. When he catches sight of her watching him, he nods graciously and she nods back, mouths a thank you at him and smirks as he looks away, eyes misting over behind his glasses. Turning, she catches sight of Tom and quite a few members of the Quorum; against the far wall, there's a smattering of Sixes, Eights, Leobens and even a Cavil, a Simon and a Doral. Full house, she thinks and smiles.

But beyond that - more than that - she can feel her father and mother and sisters, Billy and Elosha, Helo and Brynn, can feel everyone they lost along the way looking down at them from amongst the stars, well, maybe not literally, that may well have been a figment of her overtaxed brain, induced by the Chamalla, an attempt to put the intangible into a less abstract form, but they are here none the less, she can feel them. She knows Billy is smiling down on her, feels Elosha squeeze her hand, feels her father and mother and sisters hug her as they JUMP and she greets them all and then they come out of the jump and the view screen in front of her is filled with wide oceans and lush, green continents and cheers erupt everywhere even as somewhere, a radio crackles to life and a voice booms from the tall speakers flanking the view screen.

"CIC, please hold."

"We're on hold for their President," Lee whispers in her ear as Bill squeezes her hand and then stalks away. Her eyes follow her love as she listens to his son explain what's going on. "We already sent a scouting party ahead, Caprica and Leoben, Zarek, Kara and I. We established first contact yesterday. They are quite willing to meet with us and engage in talks to determine how best to settle and integrate our peoples, especially when we told them who led us here."

Kara cuts in excitedly. "You will not believe how beautiful it is down there, just like we saw on Kobol. Green fields, rolling hills, woodlands teeming with wildlife, wide open skies, clear streams that feed into oceans brimming with life, and best of all, space enough to house us all and then some to spare." She grins, a clear eyed, untroubled grin. "Fluffy clouds even."

Laura turns and looks at them in wonder, but before she can think to ask more, a new voice booms from the speakers, deep and authoritative. The accent and inflections are a little different but his words are perfectly clear as he addresses them.

"This is President Avery of the Unified Tribes of Terra. Welcome on behalf of the entirety of our people."

Bill stands by the radio, holding out the handset with a huge grin splitting his face nearly in two. "Madam President, if you will?"

She fights back tears as she accepts the handset. His fingers caress her knuckles as he slings his other arm around her shoulders, apparently having decided propriety can go frak itself. She smiles up at him, starts to speak, has to stop and start again as the enormity of this moment truly sinks in. They made it, for all their trials and hardships, they made it to a new home, were on the verge of joining their long lost kin and carving out a new life for themselves.

"Mister President," overcome, she swallows convulsively, scrapes her throat. "You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice.

"This is Laura Roslin, President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, First and Last of the Five.

"We come in peace."


	16. Chapter 16

He finds her sitting by the fountain in the town square, one shapely foot dangling in the water, bare legs toned and bronzed, her satchel on the rim of the fountain beside her, a book in her lap. Her head is thrown back, her eyes are closed and a small smile curls the corners of her mouth. Her hair has grown back just as gloriously as it was before and cascades down her back in a riotous mess of curls, shining copper in the late afternoon sun.

To him she had always been beautiful in her Presidential armour but here, like this, she is at her most breathtaking, clad in sunlight and a simple red dress much like the one she wore on New Caprica that day they got high on booze and weed and each other.

He smiles as he approaches her, sneaks up on her and lands a kiss on her upturned nose. Her eyes open, those gorgeous green eyes that will forever hold him spellbound; the luminous smile that breaks across her face as she takes him in puts the sun to shame and his chest swells with pride that it is him who put that smile there.

"Hey teach, can I carry your bag?" he whispers and she giggles as she holds out the bag with an imperious gesture. How she can manage to giggle and look imperious at the same time is beyond him but she pulls it off with grace to spare. He takes the bag but does not let go of her hand; instead he bends over with a flourish and kisses it, mapping the delicate tracery of veins on the back with the tip of his tongue and looking at her mischievously. She returns the look with a sultry one of her own and pulls him in for a quick kiss.

"How was your day?" she asks as she releases him and he sits beside her. As she speaks, her eyes rove across the bustling town square. He follows her gaze, taking in the sight of their people just strolling along, selling their wares at fruit stalls and pastry stands, going about their day to day business. His eyes return to her; she looks so pleased at the sight before her it takes his breath away.

Soon, they will get up and maybe buy some fruit and walk through the winding streets of their settlement to their new home. Their modest abode is set right at the outskirts of town, against the edge of the forest. There are no mountains, except in the distance, nor is there a clear glass lake but there is a small brook running along the edge of their garden and there's a porch and a fire place and most importantly, there's them and it is their home. The cabin they talked of it is not, but then again, the cabin was always a metaphor for everything they fancied they wanted but could not have anyway. They will walk there and maybe have a cup of tea on the porch and perhaps he'll read to her or maybe she will read to him, then, later this evening, Kara and Lee will be over for dinner. It will be a nice, normal evening one of many in the latter days of two not so normal lives.

But all that is for later, for now he's content to just here and bask in the feeling of the sun shining down on his face and her sitting right beside him.

"Had a good one, nothing too exciting, made a run up to the Galactica, Sharon and Kara are doing a fine job." The two of them alternate command of the Battlestar, as she patrols the heavens, watching over them. "How was school today?" he asks, battling a sudden wave of nostalgia. He wouldn't trade what they have for anything but sometimes, he misses the old girl. It's a good thing Sharon and Kara know enough to feign needing his advise every once in a while so he can go up and visit.

Laura slips her arm through his and leans against him and begins to fill him in on the progress of her students, and he can't help but smile as she excitedly tells him how well they are all doing, how the schoolhouse is overflowing with kids courtesy of the baby boom they experienced some nine months after they settled, how well Hera and Nicky are doing.

"Future Leaders of their generation?"

"Who knows? The world is their oyster, they can be anything they want to be, both of them, all of them, isn´t that the most wonderful thing?"

"Yeah, it is," he replies, looking at her profile, limned in sunlight. The fact that she, this creature of such poise and strength, chooses to be with him stuns him sometimes. He still can't quite believe it, mostly late at night, when she lies sleeping in his arms; it is then that doubts and fear assail him. He will find himself holding her tighter than usual, tighter than necessary, clutching her so desperately he's sure to leave bruises on her fair skin. It's as if he is afraid she will flit away if he relaxes his grip, that he'll wake up and she will be gone, consumed by the cancer after all, or dead from D'Anna's bullet, the overdose Cranach gave her or a million other things. On other nights he will wake as if from a nightmare and find himself almost shying away from her for some unnamed reason. He will loosen his grip, look down on her and see her changing face and hold his breath. Sometimes, when the moon lights the planes of her face just so, when darkness gathers in the hollows below those wide cheekbones, he will see the alienness of her. Sometimes when starlight bathes her features in an otherworldly glow, he will see the Goddess the Thirteenth Tribe worshipped; but always it is just for a fleeting moment and always, always she will morph back into Laura Roslin - the woman, his love - Laura Roslin in all her fallible human glory, and he will clutch her to him again and he will sleep, secure in the knowledge that his love is safe in his arms.

He throws her a sideways glance, here, in the sun drenched central plaza of their new homeland and Laura smiles as if she can read his thoughts. She squeezes his arm and he reaches out, rubs circles into the back of her hand where it rests in the crook of his elbow, tracing the faint scar left by Antanov's bullet.

As they sit there in companionable silence, they are greeted by almost everyone who passes them. In the years they have been here, they have both retreated from public life, but they are still the most recognized faces amongst their people, on the planet, even. The initial talks between President Avery of the Unified Tribes of Terra and President Roslin and Admiral Adama of the joint coalition of Cylon and Man had been widely televised and tales of their long trek across the heavens have already become the stuff of myth and legends. President Avery and his cabinet had welcomed them with open arms, the presence of Four of the Final Five going a long way to ensure talks of settlement and integration had gone smoothly.

They chose to settle down in a lush green belt of islands just north of the equator. Haven it is called, their little slice of Terra and it is as good a name as any. It's just a small corner of a big, wide world; the more modest and perhaps therefore most appealing of all the choices Avery gave them. They hadn't needed much; after all, there had hardly been enough of them to fit a medium sized town to begin with, even when they first started out. In the years since they settled here, some of their people have fanned out across the archipelago, others have moved to parts unknown, eager to explore the planet and quite a few Terrans have moved into their community. Humans and Cylons and Terrans have all united under the flag of the Unified Tribes, they are all getting along. All but the Cavils and Dorals that is. The Simons chose to stay on Terra and have made themselves useful members of their little community, but the Cavils and Dorals have sequestered themselves on one of the Basestars. Bill opposed the idea at first but, as Laura so succinctly pointed out, without command over Hybrids and Raiders and Centurions, they are just a gaggle of disgruntled old men and petulant little pests, effectively powerless.

Most astonishingly of all, even the Centurions have found a way to co-exist, having pledged themselves to Laura's side, she has been teaching them and somewhere along the line, they have found a certain pride in serving without being subservient. They seem happy to help out, if such a word can be applied to them, which, Laura assures him, it can. She still shares a link with them, the one lasting remnant of her earlier Chamalla induced prescience and lately, Hera and Nicky have come to share that connection.

All in all, it's more than he could ever have hoped for, all is well, and he wonders sometimes how it is that they have been afforded a happy ending.

He hadn't thought the powers that be would grant them one, and yes, he's come to believe in the powers that be, even if Laura has distanced herself from them. How else to explain the phenomenon that is her? How else to explain the miracle of them finding a place to set down after their journey had come to an ignominious end and all hope had been lost? Laura had scoffed at his overblown notions as he finally professed to maybe believe in something bigger than them, guiding the hand that created her, bringing the two of them together to lead their peoples through hardship and loss to these beautiful shores.

Funny how that works; just as the well of her belief has all but run dry, his bubbles to the surface. As is always the case with them, they meet each other in the middle, lift each other; it's what they have always done, what they continue to do.

"What're you reading?" he asks, glancing down at the book in her lap.

"Something from off of the disks we brought up from Earth," she replies. "Gaeta managed to salvage some of the data on them. There's a whole library worth of books there, including some pretty good mysteries. Avery had them sent over after they were reprinted." The Thirteenth Tribe had been ecstatic to see they brought a piece of their long lost heritage along with them when they showed up so suddenly. Much of their technology and culture had been lost when they left Earth in the aftermath of the conflict that tore the planet apart. There hadn't been much of an opportunity to grab anything beyond the immediately needful as they fled to the stars.

As Avery told it, in the vastness of space, stunned by the devastating results of their handiwork, the last remnants of the Thirteenth Tribe had forged a kind of peace between them and had set out to follow the signs left by their forefathers to this, their New Home.

A pretty commonplace tale as commonplace as their own turned out to be, he muses, history repeating itself, over and over again, until now that is. Laura, with his help, as she will keep reminding him, had ensured the pattern would be broken, the never ending cycle of devastation and rebirth had finally ended after all.

Still, for all that, they are both all too well aware that where one cycle ends, another one begins; that every day, with everything they do, with every action they take, they are molding the future, shaping the face of things to come, fashioning a new cycle.

He can only hope that this time, the good they do will outweigh the bad.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, he smiles down at Laura, his President turned Schoolteacher again, knowing the future is in good hands. He inclines his head, squints against the sun glinting off the gold lettering on the spine of the bound volume in her hand.

"_The Maltese Falcon_, huh?" he teases. "Sure that's from Gaeta's files? Sounds like a cheap knock-off to me."

She smiles, their battered copy of _Searider Falcon_ sits in a place of honor on their mantle at home. Charred and all but falling apart at the seams, it reminds them every day of what they went through to get here.

"No knock off," she enthuses, "apparently the writer, Dashiell Hammet, wrote quite a few of Earth's classic mysteries and then there's lots of other exiting material besides. Avery recommended _The Long Goodbye, Farewell, my Lovely_ and _the Big Sleep_ as well as any of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but the Sherlock Holmes ones seem a bit stilted, not the gritty stuff I know you like."

He turns towards her, shuts up her exited ramble by kissing her full on the lips. He feels her smile into the kiss and as one hand glides to her waist he reaches out with the other, takes the book from her and puts it in her bag.

"Hmm, I don't know that I like the sound of that. What with all that reading, where will we find the time to canoodle?"

"Canoodle, huh? Whatever happened to plain old frak?"

"Hey, I'm living with a schoolteacher now, gotta keep up the vocabulary."

She giggles at that, which turns into a shriek of laughter as he tickles her ribs. Taking her revenge, she splashes him with water and yelps when he returns the favor. Another splash and another giggle and he shakes the water from his hair, stands and picks her up and strides into the fountain, threatens to deposit her in the clear, cold water. She splutters and throws him a mock indignant scowl which quickly morphs into a full blown smile when he gently sets her on her feet instead. Water seeps into his boots, it's chilly but the sight of her standing there is stunning, has him hot for her in no time flat, so he doesn't mind.

She is already half soaked, droplets of water glistening on her face, sparkling in her eyelashes, sliding down her chest into the V of her blouse which is stuck to her skin in patches, leaving very little to the imagination. She is beautiful and he is mesmerized, so wrapped up in admiring the siren before him that when she throws herself at him, he stumbles backwards as he fumbles to catch her and they find themselves right under the spray, water cascading down on them. She squeals with laughter as they're both drenched in an instant and he can only imagine what the people in the square must think, seeing their former leaders splash around in the fountain. Glancing sideways, he sees they have indeed amassed quite an audience; there are several whistles and catcalls and he sees Kara smirking at them from amidst the crowd, Lee standing beside her, looking less than Presidential with his jaw hanging halfway to the floor. Bill doesn't care; it's worth it just to see Laura laugh like that. He picks her up, kisses her soundly, smiling into the kiss as whistles and catcalls turn into outright cheering. She doubles over in laughter as he breaks the kiss and bows extravagantly at their audience, sweeping off an imaginary hat. His mission in life, since they first settled here, is to make her laugh that same full throated, exuberant laugh at least once a day.

So far, it's mission accomplished and he intends to keep it that way.


End file.
